CRUSADE UNDER SIMON DE MONTFORT AGAINST THE ALBIGENSES-CAPTURE OF MINERVE AND BAR BARITIES COMMITTED BY THE PAPAL PARTY. THE Castle of Minerve, situated at a short distance to the south-west of the town of St. Pons, in the South of France, was one of the strongest of the feudal fortresses which, in ancient times, so thickly covered that part of the country, and which have still left their ruins to impart a picturesque charm to its scenery at the present day. It was built upon a steep rock, surrounded by deep precipices, and from the advantages of its position was generally esteemed impregnable. It formerly gave the title of count and viscount to its possessors, and the adjacent district was called Minervois, after its name. graving gives a view of the castle in its present state; the adjoining little village still preserves the name of Minerve. Our en In the days of its strength the castle of Minerve was a place of importance, and occupied a conspicuous station in the wars which at different times desolated the South of France. The most prominent feature, however, in its history is its capture by Simon de Montfort, during the crusade against the Albigenses, in the early part of the thirteenth century, an event of considerable moment in the history of the crusade VOL. XII. itself. In a former paper* we brought down the history of the persecution of the Albigenses to the period when the principal object of the first crusade against them had been accomplished by the capture of Carcassonne, in the month of August, 1209. All open resistance on their part was then at an end; but as the Pope's legate, Arnold Amabrie, Abbot of Citeaux, who had been foremost in preaching the crusade, and directing its operations, deemed the work of persecution to be yet incomplete, he conceived the diabolical design of rooting out the "pestilent heresy," by extirpating the enlightened people who had fostered it, and into whose homes he had already brought such dire calamities. The legate's first measure was to call a council of the crusading chiefs, to provide for the disposition of the conquests which had been made by their united arms, in favour of some prince, who would undertake to complete the extermination of the Albigenses. The viscounties of Beziers and Carcassonne, whose lawful lord, Raymond-Roger, still languished in the prison to which the perfidy of Arnold had consigned him, were offered to Eudes the Third, the reigning Duke of Burgundy. This prince was one of the great lords who had engaged in this sacred war at *See Saturday Magazine, Vol. XI., p. 97 the instigation of the monks of Citeaux; or, as a French historian of Burgundy expresses it, he had "taken the cross and joined the other lords, who, for the love of truth, and zeal for the Catholic religion, took arms to beat and destroy the Albigenses,heretics so much the more dangerous, as they affected to follow an apostolic, penitent, and altogether disinterested life." But although the blind bigotry of Duke Eudes had led him, "for the love of truth," to make war upon the truth, he was not wanting in that sort of magnanimity and regard for justice with which knights and nobles were, or were supposed to be, inspired, in the age of chivalry. He refused the legate's offer of the territory of Raymond-Roger, saying, "That he had plenty of lordships and domains without taking that to disinherit the said viscount, and that it appeared to him that they had done him evil enough without despoiling him of his heritage." The legate, however, was not long in finding a more pliant ally. He obtained from the council for himself, in conjunction with two bishops and four knights, full authority to settle the fate of the conquered lands; and then, in the name of this commission, offered them to Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester*, whose character is thus depicted by Sismondi. This lord of a castle ten leagues from Paris, was the head of a house that had been illustrious for two hundred years, and which is traced by some to a natural son of King Robert. He had possessed the countship of Evreux, which, a few years before, he had sold to Philip Augustus; and his mother, who was an English woman, had left him, as an heritage, the Earldom of Leicester. He had distinguished himself in the fourth crusade, from which he was recently returned. Skilful as a soldier, austere in his carriage, fanatical in his religion, cruel and perfidious, he united every quality which could please a monk. He was too ambitious to refuse the offer which was made him, of elevating himself to the rank of the grand feudatories; but he still thought himself obliged to feign a refusal, very sure that they would overcome this pretended reluctance. Simon de Montfort having accepted the proffered lands, proceeded to receive the homage of those among the vassals of the two viscounties, whom fear had inclined to submission, and brought to the camp of the crusaders; he also imposed on his new territories an annual tax payable at Rome, and issued severe decrees against all his subjects, who should not display an immediate and eager anxiety to free themselves from excommunication. In spite of the capture of Beziers † and Carcassonne ‡, the two principal towns of the Albigenses, they were yet far from submitting to their persecutors, but continued bravely to hold out in the castles which abounded in the country. Many, too, of the crusaders departed from the army, their stipulated term of service,-forty days, having expired. Still however there remained a large force under the command of De Montfort, and after taking some castles he directed his arms against the Count of Foix, who, as well as the captive Viscount of Carcassonne, bore the name of Raymond-Roger. This count possessed the greatest part of Albigeois, which was regarded as peculiarly the seat of the new doctrines; and was even himself suspected of having secretly embraced them. Unable to contend with De Montfort, he offered to treat, after having sustained several reverses, and his antagonist deeming it politic to accept the *This name sounds familiar to English ears. The earl mentioned in the text was the father of that Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester, who usurped, as it were, the authority of the crown in the reign of Henry the Third, and terminated his ambitious career on the 4th of August, 1265, in the memorable battle of Evesham, which restored the sovereign power to its legitimate possessor. See Saturday Magazine, Vol. XÏ., p. 50,` Ibid. Vol. XI. p. 97. offer, the active operations of the campaign of 1209 were, for a time, at an end. Simon de Montfort now turned his attention towards securing himself in possession of the new states which he had acquired; and to effect that object he had recourse to a deed which has left upon his character one of the deepest of the stains disgracing it. He had observed, that although RaymondRoger, the lawful sovereign of those states, was still allowed to be detained in prison, the hostility of many of the crusading chiefs against him was mitigated, and that, in fact, pity had succeeded in their minds to fury. The neighbours of that prince loved him; his people regretted him; and it was not impossible that his uncle and sovereign lord, the King of Arragon, might be disposed to interfere in his behalf. Accordingly De Montfort " gave the necessary orders that Raymond-Roger should die of a dysentery on the 10th of November, in a lower room of the viscountal palace at Carcassonne, where he was carefully guarded." Anxious however not to appear guilty of so heinous a crime, he displayed the body of the youthful prince to his subjects, and caused him to be buried with honour. But his efforts to conceal his villany were fruitless; the public voice accused him of having poisoned his captive. The chief operations of the campaign of 1209 having been brought to an end, the crusaders deemed their task accomplished, and certainly they had ample reason to be satisfied with the extent of the enormities which they had committed. They had destroyed two large cities, they had slaughtered with the sword thousands of the sectaries, and compelled others to fly from their burning houses, and sink under the pressure of want in the forests and mountains. Of the princes who had excited their wrath, by wishing to maintain in their own dominions some liberty of conscience, one had perished in prison, two others had submitted, and "to make their peace, refused not their tribute to the fires of the inquisition," so that a daily sacrifice of human victims was offered up to the bigotry of these persecuting fanatics. Sismondi observes, that those who had committed so many crimes were not, for the most part, bad Northern France where crimes have always been rare; men. They came from that part of Burgundy and but the heretics were in their eyes outcasts from the human race. Accustomed to confide their consciences to their priests, -to hear the orders of Rome as a voice from heaven,never to submit that which appertained to the faith to the judgment of reason,-they congratulated themselves on the horror they felt for the sectaries. The more zealous they were for the glory of God, the more ardently they laboured for the destruction of heretics, the better Christians they thought themselves. 66 Pope Innocent the Third, was the original in. stigator of the persecution of the Albigenses; and by his legates and emissaries, he continually sharpened the sword of the murderers." The two Spaniards whom he sent into the province in 1204, and who helped to found the Inquisition, "first taught the art of secking out in the villages those whom the priests were afterwards to fasten to their stakes." The spirit of fanaticism had been excited to frenzy by the monks over Europe. Germans came from the extremity of Austria to fight under the banners of the crusade; and the English monk, Matthew Paris, testifies to the zeal of our benighted countrymen in the same cause, and to their triumphant joy at "the miracle which had avenged the Lord," as he calls the massacre of Beziers. The guilt, therefore, of the atrocities committed against the Albigenses, will not rest so heavily upon the actual perpetrators as upon the subtle instigators | place. As they were proceeding to execute them, of them; and as Sismondi remarks, it would be to the Abbot Arnold returned to the camp, and De destroy the only responsibility which rests upon the Montfort declared that nothing which they had powerful, the only resort for the oppressed upon this agreed upon could be considered as binding, till the earth, not to hold up to public execration the fana- legate had given his assent. tical monks who directed this movement, and the ambitious who profited by it. The vengeance of public opinion ought not to rest only upon those who accompanied the Crusaders in their expeditions, who dragged the reformers to the flames, and who mingled their songs of triumph with the groans of their miserable victims; these were, at least, blinded by the same mad passion with which they had inspired the combatants. There was something more personal, more deliberate, more coldly ferocious, in those clouds of monks who, issuing from all the convents of the order of Citeaux, spread themselves through the states of Europe, occupied all the pulpits, appealed to all the passions to convert them into one, and showed how every vice might be expiated by crime, how remorse might be expelled by the flames of their piles, how the soul, polluted with every shameful passion, might become pure and spotless by bathing in the blood of heretics. Towards the close of 1209, the crusaders had experienced severe reverses, nearly all the castles which they had conquered having been surprised and recaptured; so that at the end of that year, the dominion of Simon de Montfort, in Languedoc, was reduced to eight cities or castles, it having previously comprised more than two hundred. During the ensuing Winter he remained on the defensive; but with the Spring came fresh clouds of fanatics, who enabled him again to take the field in force. At these words, (says Peter de Vaux-Cernay,) the abbot was greatly afilicted. In fact, he desired that all the take upon himself to condemn them, on account of his enemies of Christ should be put to death, but he could not quality of monk and priest. With the view, however, of creating some dispute concerning the negotiation, and thereby causing all the inhabitants to be put to the sword, he required the two negotiators, De Montfort and Guiraud, to write down without communication the conditions to which they had agreed. As Arnold had hoped would be the case, he found some difference in the statements, of which De Montfort availed himself to declare, in the name of the legate, that the negotiation was broken off. But the knight of Minerve replied, that, though he thought himself sure of his memory, yet he would accept the capitulation as Simon de Montfort had drawn it up. De Montfort, however, referred tulation upon the following terms:-That the Lord the matter to the Legate Arnold, who settled the capiGuiraud and all the Catholics in the castle, and even those who had favoured the heretics, should have their lives saved that the castle should remain in heretics," of whom there was a considerable number, the hands of De Montfort,-and that the "perfect should have their lives saved if they would become converted. When the capitulation was read in the council of war, De Montfort began his attacks at once upon the castles, which existed in great numbers. Many of them were, however, abandoned on the approach of Robert of Mauvoisin, (says the monk of Vaux-Cernay,) a nobleman entirely devoted to the Catholic faith, cried, that the crusaders, their possessors not deeming them the pilgrims would never consent to that; for it was not to capable of sustaining a siege. De Montfort gene-show mercy to the heretics but to put them to death, that rally caused all their inhabitants whom he could lay they had taken the cross; but the Abbot Arnold repliedhands upon, to be hanged upon gibbets. Some Fear not, for I believe there will be very few converted. castles, calculating too favourably upon their strength, endeavoured to resist him; that of Brom was taken by assault the third day of the siege, and Simon de Montfort chose out more than a hundred of its wretched inhabitants, and having torn out their eyes, and cut off their noses, sent them, in that state, under the guidance of a one-eyed man, to the castle of Cabaret, to announce to the garrison of that fortress the fate which awaited them. The castle of Alairac was not taken till the eleventh day; a great part of its inhabitants were able to escape from the ferocity of the crusaders, but De Montfort massacred the remainder. Further on he found castles abandoned and absolutely empty; and, not being able to reach the men, he sent out his soldiers to destroy the surrounding vines and olive-trees. De Montfort then conducted his army to a more important and arduous task-the siege of the castle of Minerve, situated at a small distance from Narbonne, on a steep rock surrounded by precipices, and regarded as the strongest place in the country. The castle belonged to William à Guiraud of Minerve, a vassal of the Viscounts of Carcassonne, and one of the bravest knights of the province. The army of the crusaders appeared before Minerve at the beginning of June; the Legate Arnold, and the canon Theodise, joined it soon after. The inhabitants, among whom were many who had embraced the tenets of the Albigenses, defended themselves with great valour for seven weeks; but when, on account of the heat of Summer, the water began to fail in their cisterns, they demanded a capitulation, Guiraud came himself to the camp of the crusaders one day when the legate was absent, and agreed with Simon de Montfort on conditions for the surrender of the The anticipations of the legate proved well founded. The crusaders took possession of the castle of Minerve on the 22nd of July, 1210; they entered singing Te Deum, and preceded by the cross and the standards of Montfort. The "heretics," as they had been styled, were in the mean time assembled, the men in one house, the women in another, and there, on their knees, and resigned to their fate, they prepared themselves by prayer, for the torments that awaited them. The Abbot of Vaux-Cernay came in pursuance of the capitulation, and began to preach to them the Catholic faith; but his auditors interrupted him by a unanimous cry,— We will have none of your faith, (said they,) we have renounced the church of Rome: your labour is in vain for neither death nor life will make us renounce the opinions that we have embraced. The abbot then passed to the assembly of the women, whom he found equally resolute, and more enthusiastic in their declarations. The Count de Montfort, in his turn, visited both, having already piled up an enormous mass of dry wood: "Be converted to the Catholic faith," said he to the assembled Albigenses, "or ascend this pile." None, however, were shaken. Fire was then applied to the pile, and the whole square being soon covered with a tremendous conflagration, the victims were conducted to it. Violence, however, we are told, was not necessary to compel them to enter the flames; they voluntarily precipitated themselves therein to the number of one hundred and forty, after having commended their souls to God. These martyrs (says the historian Milner,) died in triumph, praising God that he had counted them worthy to suffer for the sake of Christ. They opposed the legate to his face, and told Simon that on the last day, when the books should be opened, he would meet with the just judgment of God for all his cruelties. Three women only recanted; they were forcibly held back by the noble lady of Marly, the mother of Bouchard, Lord of Montmorenci; terror and consternation succeeded to the enthusiastic fervour which had hitherto supported them, and consenting to be converted, they were saved from the flames. F I A AMUSEMENTS IN Science. No. VIII. GEOMETRY.--Part 5. B To draw a right angle without any other instrument than a straight stick and two or three pegs. Draw the straight line F A C B, and make F A, A C, and c B, equal to each other; from c draw the straight line C D d in any direction, make C D equal to CA, and draw the line Dh through the point A, draw the line FG, through any part of D h, and make EG equal to E F. The point & will then be exactly perpendicular to A, and the line GA, when drawn, will be at right angles with A B, and consequently the angle A is a right angle. To measure the superficial contents of a rectangular piece of ground. Suppose A B to be equal to twenty feet, and C B to nine feet; multiply twenty by nine, which produces one hundred and eighty; this would be the contents of the square plot of ground A B C D, and consequently, the contents of the triangular plot would be equal to one-half one hundred C Fig. 2. B and eighty, namely, ninety feet. D A Fig. 1. board in the form shown in figs. 4 and 5, to represent the two parts of the wall; lay the piece representing the straight wall on the curved piece, and it will be found that the angles which project at A and B will exactly fill up the spaces at E and F. The piece of pasteboard representing the straight wall, may thus be proved to be exactly sufficient to form a piece equal to that representing the curved wall. You may then lay the curved piece upon the straight one, and reversing the experiment, prove that the curved piece is capable of forming a rectangular piece equal to the other. | ON EMPLOYMENTS WHICH INJURE THE A POPULAR DESCRIPTION OF THE ORGANS OF SIGHT. MAN in his present temporary position on the globe, is subject to all the physical laws which, under the direction of a superintending Providence, govern the universe. He is endowed with certain perceptions, by whose means alone, he communicates with the exterior world and acquires all his knowledge. These perceptive faculties are admirably fitted for use in the strict sense of the word, and it seems to be a law of nature, as rigid as it is grand and beautiful, that the natural laws are self-acting; that is, they bear with and inflict of themselves their own penalties. If, for example, we exceed the use of any one faculty; so soon as the use intended by nature is exceeded, the abuse of the faculty begins, and then also the penalty attached to the law of nature, which regulates the use, begins. Pain is the most apparent symptom of abuse, and usually accompanies it; but the most awful, and awful because mysterious, operation of the penalty is, the slow and premature loss of the use of the faculty either in part or wholly the faculty then ceases to act; and its possessor, because he has abused one of nature's gifts, is deprived of it. : And here there is no court of appeal: it is useless to urge ignorance of the powers of the faculty, since nature began by inflicting her penalty by slow degrees, either by imparting to the possessor small increments of pain, or partial deprivation of the power of the faculty, so as to urge, as it were, upon the owner, gently, and in her own beautiful way, the necessity of complying with those laws which never vary, by chiding him for being so hard a taskmaster as to exact from a faithful servant a task which it was never calculated to supply. Many of the arts of life furnish employments which injuriously affect the faculties of those employed in them: what these pursuits are, and how they operate, is a curious and instructive inquiry, into which, as far as respects the organ of sight, we are now about to enter, with the hope that our readers generally will find it useful, and some of them in particular will, we doubt not, find the subject one of more than common interest as it affects themselves peculiarly. We shall point out how, in many employments, the faculty of vision is injuriously affected or abused, and the simple and practicable means of removing the abuse. We select the organ* of sight as being probably the most extensively useful of all our faculties, and the one most liable to abuse. We propose, in order to the due comprehension of tion of the eye somewhat fully; and as many of the our present subject, to describe the organ and funcvisual imperfections to be hereafter described are the results of the writer's own personal experience, the present paper may be considered partly as an exposition of the writer's own visual defects, and also how such defects may be traced to a large variety of causes more or less energetic in their action, but whose proximate operation is nearly the same. power of its 1. The eye, which, from the wonderful exterior expression, and the exquisite beauty of its internal arrangements, is said to be "Nature's masterpiece," is a globular structure placed within an orbit, the nose and under the arch of the forehead. The or funnel-shaped cavity, on one side of the root of • We may here state, that an organ is the physiological arrange ment of parts through which the function, or work done by the organ, acts. Thus the eye is the organ of sight; seeing, therefore, is the function. The ear is the organ of hearing, and hearing the function, &c. | according as light is more or less abundant. In man this apparatus seems to be self-acting, and not to depend upon the will, except in a few rare cases, where individuals have been known to possess the power of spontaneously regulating the motions of the iris; but this power, like that by which a very few persons have been able to move about the outer ear, after the manner of some of the lower animals, seems lost to the great bulk of mankind. It will doubtless have been noticed, that on quitting a well eye-ball is a little smaller than this socket or orbit, to allow of free motion in every direction: this motion is effected by means of a muscular arrangement attached to the white of the eye, and the motion is rendered easy, and at the same time the eye is defended from injury or compression in its motion, by a quantity of fat which in health is secreted in the orbit, forming several soft cushions on which the globe of the eye rests. When this fat is absorbed by any emaciating disease, the eye sinks within its socket, and a person is then familiarly termed "hollow-illumined room, where the pupil is small, that is, in eyed." The eye itself is composed chiefly of three humours (one of which is solid and the others fluid), and four membranous coats or tunics: the humours completely fill the eye, and give it its shape, and at the same time support the membranous coats. The white of the eye, or the slerotica, so named from its hardness, is the exterior coat, and forms the whole of the outer eye-ball, with the exception of about one-fifth, which latter space is occupied by the cornea, (so called from its horny texture,) a transparent shield placed in front of the eye, through which the rays of light pass uninterruptedly. The cornea receives its lustre and polish from the eyelids, which are constantly engaged in folding over it; and our readers will doubtless call to mind that one of the first acts of the cold though active hand of Death, is to dull the transparency of this beautiful convex mirror, which reflects all objects presented to it; while life, health, and youth, preserve its properties unimpaired. The tendency of age is to flatten the cornea, and to diminish its transparency and polish; hence, it is said, that the eye of age is dim; and by a converse application the eye of youth is said to be lustrous, sparkling, beaming, &c., since in this case the cornea is a convex mirror, whose polish reflects light from its surface, while its transparency transmits light into the eye for the purposes of vision. The white of the eye is lined internally with a membrane of a more delicate structure, called the choroïd coat, or tunic, which is covered with a black non-transparent pigment, placed there for the purpose of absorbing the rays of light when the purpose of vision has been served. Within the choroïd coat is the retina, (so called from its reticulated or net-like structure,) which is a very delicate membrane, formed from the expansion of the optic nerve, which enters the eye at a point nearly opposite the pupil. In the centre of the retina there is a small spot surrounded with a yellow margin; this spot is miscalled the foramen centrale, or central hole; for it is not a hole but a spot; and it is remarkable, that while the whole of the retina receives upon itself the images of external objects, and is highly susceptible of luminous impressions, the foramen centrale is incapable of luminous excitation by means of light of ordinary intensity, and it does not, as far as we know, assist the visual powers of the eye. Behind the cornea we find a coloured membrane drawn across the eye; this membrane is called the iris, (a Latin word for the rainbow,) and is the distinguishing feature by which the colour of eyes is determined, its anterior surface being in some animals richly and variously coloured. The iris is perforated nearly in its centre by the pupil*, which is a hole for the admission of light into the interior chambers of the eye; and it is a fact no less extraordinary than beautiful, that the iris is furnished with a self-adjusting apparatus, to which there is no parallel throughout the whole of human invention, by means of which the pupil is contracted or enlarged, * The Latin word pupilla signifies the ball, the apple or sight of the eye. its contracted state, in consequence of the abundant presence of light, and going out into a dark street, we are apt, at first, to suppose that the night is more than usually obscure; but, as we proceed, objects become more and more visible, and we are apt to exclaim, "It is not so dark as it was!" while, in all probability, the change, if any, is in the observer's own eye, since the fibrous arrangement which regulates the motions of the pupil, being relieved from the stimulus of a large quantity of light, gradually relaxes, and allows the pupil to expand, so as to admit as much light as possible in the obscure situation into which we now suppose it is transferred. It is believed that the motions of the pupil in the eyes of feline animals, such as cats, &c., and animals of prey generally, are voluntary; that is, they are regulated by the will of the animal, and serve the purposes of sudden and extraordinary adjustment, which may be required by the animal while engaged in its nocturnal pursuit after food. The iris divides the interior globe of the eye into two very unequal parts, or chambers; that before the iris is called the anterior chamber, and contains a limpid colourless liquid, called the aqueous humour, from its similarity to water, and the space behind the iris (which has been called the curtain of the eye, from the beautiful manner in which it seems to fold and unfold), is named the posterior chamber, and contains a small hard double convex lens, called the crystalline lens, (from its resemblance to crystal;) and the vitreous humour (from its similarity to molten glass), which completely fills up all the rest of the eye. The crystalline lens in its posterior, and most convex face, is exactly fitted to a concavity in the forepart of the vitreous humour; it is said to be enclosed in a transparent bag, called a capsula, and it is surrounded by what are termed the ciliary processes, which form an opaque circle round the lens, and impede all rays which might otherwise be transmitted by its side: the lens itself is composed of triangular pieces, which in their turn are formed of concentric scales. The substance of the lens increases in density: that is, its structure becomes more compact from the circumference to its centre, for the purpose of correcting what is called its spherical aberration ↑. The form of this lens varies in different animals according to their habits and places of abode. In the eye of the cod-fish it is spherical, and such of our readers as have seen a boiled cod's-head at table, will probably have noticed a white opaque ball in the eye of the animal; this is the crystalline lens of the codfish, which containing albumen, becomes of an opaque white, similar to the white of egg (which is almost pure albumen) when subjected to the heat of boiling water. The vitreous humour occupies the whole of the space between the crystalline lens and the retina. This humour is contained within cells, and resembles + The object of spherical lenses is to converge the rays of light to a point or focus, but in practice it is found that the rays deviate somewhat from this point, and this deviation is called spherical aberration; the latter term implies a wandering or straying. Two causes are assigned to this phenomenon; 1st, the form of curvature of the lens; 2nd. the different refrangibilities of different rays of light. |