Medieval Religion and Thought171as an opportunity to expand his royal domain and
forced the southerners to surrender in 1229. The last
great Cathar stronghold, a mountain-top castle known
as Montségur, finally fell in 1244. More than two hun-
dred Cathars refused to abjure their faith and were
burned together on a huge pyre. Great cathedrals were
built at Albi and Narbonne to proclaim the triumph of
the faith, but Cathar communities flourished in secret
until after 1300.
The papal Inquisition was established to ferret
them out. An inquisition is basically a court established
to investigate and root out heresy. Bishops had begun
organizing inquisitions at the diocesan level in the mid-
twelfth century. These episcopal inquisitions proved in-
effective in the Albigensian heartland where heresy
permeated entire communities. Even bishops who were
themselves untainted by error might be reluctant to
proceed against prominent individuals or members of
their own families. By placing the Inquisition under pa-
pal control, Innocent III was able to secure a measure of
impartiality. Legates responsible only to him were dis-
patched as needed, making it more difficult for heretics
to take refuge behind local privilege. To believers,
heresy was a terrible crime because it brought about the
eternal damnation of those who accepted it. Inquisitors
therefore felt justified in using every means available,
including torture, to secure a confession. If none were
forthcoming, or if the heretic confessed but would not
repent, he or she would be turned over to the secular
authorities and burned alive, the standard penalty for
heresy in both canon and civil law.
After 1233 Gregory IX introduced the tribunal to
the south of France on a systematic basis. As many as
five thousand heretics were burned there by the end of
the century. The Inquisition had other interests as well.
Anyone, including academic theorists who overstepped
the bounds of theological propriety, was subject to its
jurisdiction. If the church of the early Middle Ages had
been absorbed in its missionary role and relatively in-
different to the definition of orthodoxy, those days
were gone.
The new order was solidified by the Fourth Lateran
Council. Called by Innocent III in 1215, it was de-
signed to resemble the great councils of the early
church. Not only bishops, abbots, and the heads of reli-
gious and military orders, but also princes and munici-
pal authorities from all over the Latin west were invited
to consider a carefully prepared agenda. In only three
days of formal meetings, the delegates adopted a con-
fession of faith that specifically rejected Albigensian be-
liefs, defined the seven sacraments, and enshrined
transubstantiation as dogma. All Christians were or-
dered to confess and receive communion at least once a
year, and a wide variety of reforms aimed at the purifi-
cation of ecclesiastical life were adopted. In terms of its
influence on both doctrine and practice, it was the most
important council of the Middle Ages.
The organization of mendicant orders, the Domini-
cans and the Franciscans, must also be seen as a re-
sponse to the crisis of the twelfth century. Among those
who had hoped to convert the Albigensians by peaceful
means was the Castilian preacher Domingo de
Guzmán, or St. Dominic (c. 1170–1221). After several
years among the heretics, he came to believe that, if the
teachings of the church were presented by competent
preachers who lived a life of apostolic poverty, heresy
could not survive. In 1207 he organized a convent of
women who had recently converted. In 1216 he se-
cured papal confirmation of an order of men dedicated
to preaching and living a life of austerity equal to that
of the parfaits.Popularly known as the Dominicans,
they stressed the intellectual formation of their mem-
bers and lived by begging. Within a generation they
had taken their place among the intellectual leaders of
the church.
A second order, founded by Dominic’s contempo-
rary St. Francis of Assisi (c. 1181–1226), was not di-
rectly concerned with the problem of heresy but
embraced the idea of evangelical poverty with even
greater fervor (see illustration 9.6). The son of a
wealthy merchant, Francis was inspired by a series of
visions to abandon his family and retire to the town of
Assisi where he began to preach, though still a layman.
He had no intention of forming a religious order in the
conventional sense, but his preaching and the holiness
of his life attracted disciples. In 1209 he went to Rome
with eleven others and secured Innocent III’s approval
of a new rule dedicated to the imitation of Christ.
The Franciscans, as they were called, met a con-
temporary need. Their dedication to absolute poverty
and the attractive spirit of their founder endeared them
to the laity, and they soon became the largest of the
mendicant orders. The Second Order of St. Francis,
sometimes known as the Poor Clares, was created for
women.
Two smaller mendicant orders, the Carmelites and
the Augustinians, were created in the same period. The
friars, as the mendicants were called, emerged as the
leaders of the great intellectual revival already under
way in response to the challenges of the twelfth
century.