The Papal Crusades Against the Albigenses

# The Papal Crusades Against the Albigenses

In the days of Innocent III., the power of the Roman Church had advanced far beyond mere words of threat. The roarings of the Iconic Lion-Mouth, representing the papal authority, were not idle; they were formidable proclamations that sent terror throughout the ecclesiastical and secular domains of Europe. Lucius III. and Innocent III. issued formal decrees commanding bishops to seize heretics, condemn them, and deliver them to civil authorities for capital punishment. Princes and magistrates were enjoined to execute these sentences according to canon and civil law. The papacy, “supported by the presence and energy of our beloved son Frederick, the illustrious Emperor of the Romans,” rose against all heretical sects and, by apostolic authority, condemned them without distinction of name or origin.

The decrees singled out the Cathari, Paterini, Poor Men of Lyons, Passagini, and Arnaldists—the Two Witnesses clothed in sackcloth (Apoc. 11:3). Any who preached without authority from the Apostolic See or their local bishop, or who deviated in doctrine from the Roman Church regarding the sacraments, baptism, remission of sins, matrimony, or other ecclesiastical rites, were condemned as heretics. All their supporters and defenders were likewise bound to perpetual anathema. Clergymen found in error were to be stripped of their offices and delivered to secular authorities, unless they publicly abjured their heresy and made proper satisfaction. Laymen were to suffer vengeance according to their crime if they refused to return to the orthodox faith. Those merely suspected, if unable to demonstrate innocence, were subjected to the same punishments. Relapsed heretics, after abjuration, faced the severest penalties, and their property was confiscated for the service of the Church.

The papal decrees extended to all societal authorities. Archbishops and bishops were to oversee inquiries into suspected heretics, compelling men of good reputation, or entire communities if necessary, to identify heretics or those attending clandestine assemblies. Those refusing to swear were themselves deemed heretics. Secular lords who neglected to act against heresy under papal admonition faced excommunication, removal from office, and forfeiture of their lands. Cities resisting enforcement of these decrees were to be deprived of commerce and episcopal privileges, and all favorers of heretics were barred from public office and civil participation.

The fourth Lateran Council, convened in 1215 under Innocent III., reinforced these policies. Over a thousand bishops and abbots, along with ambassadors from most European kingdoms, ratified measures compelling civil lords to eradicate heresy under threat of excommunication and dispossession. Catholics who assisted in the suppression of heretics, or took the cross, were promised indulgences and spiritual fortification equivalent to participation in the Crusades to the Holy Land. These enactments were codified in the decretals of Gregory IX., institutionalizing the extermination of all who dissented from Roman superstition and refused obedience.

By the early thirteenth century, the Two Witnesses, branded heretics by Rome, had become formidable antagonists of the papacy. In the southern provinces of France—including Languedoc, Provence, Catalonia, the Pyrenees, and parts of Spain—thriving communities of industrious, intelligent people fostered religious views hostile to the Leo-Dragonic Mouth of Rome, also known as the Imperio-Babylonish hierarchy. These groups, known as Albigenses from the province of Albi, bore vivid testimony against Romish superstition, idolatry, and the moral corruption of clergy. The Belgian Chronicle, citing Caesarius in 1208, notes: “The error of the Albigenses prevailed to that degree, that it had infected as much as a thousand cities; and if it had not been repressed by the swords of the faithful, I think that it would have corrupted the whole of Europe.”

Even critics such as David Hume acknowledge their moral excellence, observing that Innocent III. waged a crusade against the Albigenses because they neglected church rites and opposed clerical power. Despite being “the most innocent and inoffensive of mankind,” they were exterminated with extreme violence. Ebrard of Bethune, writing in 1212, refers to them as Vallenses, dwelling in the Valleys of Piedmont, witnessing in sackcloth. Their doctrinal principles, preserved by the Centuriators of Magdeburg, emphasized the supreme authority of Scripture, the necessity of reading the prophets and apostles, the legitimacy of only two sacraments—baptism and the Lord’s Supper—the rejection of purgatory, the condemnation of the mass for the dead, the idolatry of saint-worship, and the corruption of Rome as the Babylonian Harlot. They also repudiated the pope’s primacy, clerical celibacy, monastic orders, and other inventions of men.

Contemporary Romanists, including Reinerius and Thuanus, corroborate these truths. Reinerius, a Dominican Inquisitor-General, admitted the Leonists’ influence, noting their piety, widespread presence, and adherence to correct beliefs about God, despite their opposition to Rome. Thuanus recounts that Peter Waldo, a wealthy citizen of Lyons around 1170, gave rise to the Waldenses by translating Scriptures into the vernacular and preaching them across Europe. The Waldenses declared the Church of Rome to be the Babylonian Harlot, condemned monasticism and clerical celibacy, and rejected papal authority, while upholding moral and doctrinal integrity.

The conflict of the thirteenth century thus pitted the papal hierarchy—the Lamb-Horned Beast and his Image—against the Two Witnesses and the Saints of the Holy City. The alarm over heresy prompted the imposition of compulsory allegiance, crusades, and the Inquisition. Thousands of Albigenses, Waldenses, and related witnesses were slain, exiled, or dispersed across France, Italy, Germany, Bohemia, Poland, Livonia, and Britain. The secular and ecclesiastical powers worked in concert to destroy opposition, trampling the faithful under the “lawless feet” of papal and imperial authority. Yet, as the witness of the saints endures, their anastasis centuries later, in 1789–1792, marked the decline of the Iconic Man-Power. The papal hierarchy, weakened and senile, faces the consequences of its prior tyranny, while the patience and faith of the true saints remain steadfast, keeping the commandments of the Deity and the faith of Jesus.