Languedoc

He and his immediate successors are responsible for imagining and beginning an organized movement to sweep heretics out of Christendom.

Languedoc in southwestern France was largely populated by heretics, whose opinions were considered particularly offensive.

Known as the Albigens- They were the subjects of the Count of Toulouse, and were an industrious and respectable people.

But the Church got far too little money out of this anti-clerical population, and Innocent called upon the count to extirpate heresy from his dominion.

Anyway, next we got the Inquisition.

Not the Spanish Inquisition, which of course no one expects, but the Inquisition itself as an institution cropped up in the 12th century to deal with the Waldensians and the Cathars, the good men and women of Languedoc, a.k.a. the Albigensians, Albigensian Crusade.

Yeah, they got enough power and they could finally do this, and they decided that this centralizing effort was the best way to handle heresies going forward.

Mm-hmm.

In 1208, just four years before the Children's Crusade, the Pope had called for the Albigensian Crusade.

This was a church-sanctioned war against a sect known as the Cathars, whose stronghold was in the Languedoc region in what is today southern France.

According to the Pope, the Cathars were heretics whose unorthodox theology was undermining Christendom.

This war was still raging at the time of the Children's Crusade.

The Duke of Orléans and the Condé family were mutually jealous and desirous of securing important provincial governments.

Henry Condé demanded Languedoc for himself and the estates of Chantilly and Dommartin, in fact the whole of the domains of his brother-in-law, Henry of Montmorency.

Enghien was to have Burgundy, and as the Duke of Longueville, Condé's son-in-law, was governor of Normandy, it was evident that acquiescence with demands such as these would prove highly detrimental to the development of the French monarchy.

Orléans, on his part, demanded Champagne with Sedan.

Mazarin, however, made no attempt to carry out this suggestion.

He preferred the safer plan of playing them off the one against the other, and for carrying out this policy he was by nature remarkably well suited.

By giving Languedoc, on which Condé had set his heart, to Orléans, he preserved the friendship with the latter and stirred up strife between the two families.

All through the year 1643 the provincial question had occupied his mind.

The Ingoldsby Legends, 3rd Series, by Richard Harris Barham.

The Lord of Toulouse, A Legend of Languedoc.

Veluti in Speculum, Theatre Royal, Covent Garden.

Count Raymond rules in Languedoc, o'er the Champagne fair and wide, with town and stronghold many a one, washed by the wave of the Blue Garonne, and from far Auvergne to Roussillon, and away to Narbonne, and the mouths of the Rhone, and his Léonois silks and his Narbonne honey, bring in his lordship a great deal of money.

A thousand lances, stout and true, attend Count Raymond's call, and knights and nobles of high degree from guienne provence and burgundy before count raymond bent the knee and veiled to him one and all and isabel of aragon he weds the pride of spain you might not find so rich a prize a dame so healthy wealthy and wise so pious withal with such beautiful eyes so exactly the venus de medicis size in all that wide domain then his cellar is stored, as well as his board, with the choicest of all La Belle France can afford, Chambertin, Chateau Margot, La Rose, and La Fitte, with much champagne of the comet year, neat as imported, fine, sparkling, and not over-sweet, while his chaplain, good man, when called in to say grace, would groan, and put on an elongated face, that such turtle, such turbot, john dory in place not without blushing pronouncing a benison worthy old soul on such very fat venison sighing to think such victuals and drink are precisely the traps by which satan makes men his own and grieving o'er scores of huge barbecued boars which he thinks should not darken a christian man's doors though twas all very well pagan poets should rate him as animal propter conrivia natum he was right i must say for at this time of day when we're not so precise whether cleric or lay with respect to our food as in time so passe we still find our bores whether grave ones or gay after dinner at least very much in the way we spell the word now with an e not an a and as honest pere jacques was inclined to spare diet he gave his advice to all grades of society.

Think less of pudding, and think more of piety.

King John continues to be obstinate.

And the Cathar heretics are gathering strength in Languedoc, Your Grace, another reports, despite the best efforts of our allies there.

Yet another cardinal raises his voice.

The German princes are asking for more concessions, Holy Father.