The Impact of the Crusades 129
France which still resisted his rule; he even invaded the county of toulouse in
1211, attempting unsuccessfully to take toulouse itself.144
In the summer of 1213, peter II of Aragon (1196–1213), believing that his
interests in the region were threatened by Simon, intervened on the side of the
southern French. Simon and his crusaders met the combined force of Aragon and
toulouse at Muret, defeated them, and killed peter himself. raymond vI of toulouse
was forced to flee and in 1215 at the Fourth Lateran Council Simon de Montfort
was formally invested by Innocent III with the County of toulouse and lands
adjacent which had been overrun by crusaders.145 raymond and his son—the
future raymond vII of toulouse—returned from exile in 1216, and although
Simon tried to take toulouse from them he was himself killed in 1218.146 despite
an expedition in 1219 by prince Louis, heir to the throne of France, raymond
vII began to recover his ancestral territories and only in 1226 did Louis, now
king of France, gain control of the region and—by 1229—force raymond to sue
for peace.147
Innocent III’s view that Jews as well as heretics posed a potential threat to
Christian society was particularly clear in letters concerned with the Albigensian
Crusade, and it is striking that heretics and Jews might both be viewed as an
‘internal’ threat in his correspondence to France. Indeed it is possible that Innocent’s
drive to eliminate heretics heightened his sensitivity to Jews. Hence in a letter ‘Etsi
non displiceat’ of 1205 he both complained to philip Augustus about what he saw
as pernicious Jewish activities in France and urged him to bestir himself to remove
heretics from his kingdom.148 He ordered philip Augustus to take steps to remove
heretics as part of his attempt to eliminate heresy in Languedoc which would
culminate in his call for the Albigensian Crusade.149 Later, writing in 1207 to
raymond vI of toulouse on the eve of the launch of the crusade which was to be
sent against him, Innocent blamed the count for entrusting Jews with public
office.150 In 1208 he declared that he had called on Christian soldiers to exter-
minate the followers of wicked heresy and he urged the king of France to induce
Jews to remit all usury owed by crusaders.151
Such correspondence reflected an increasing number of anti-Jewish allegations—
to be explained at least in part by the huge interest which Jews were charging
144 peter of les vaux-de-Cernay, The History of the Albigensian Crusade, ed. Sibly and Sibly,
pp.123–5.
145 peter of les vaux-de-Cernay, The History of the Albigensian Crusade, ed. Sibly and Sibly,
pp.253–5.
146 peter of les vaux-de-Cernay, The History of the Albigensian Crusade, ed. Sibly and Sibly, p.277.
147 Laurence Marvin, The Occitan War. A Military and Political History of the Albigensian Crusade,
1209–1218 (Cambridge, 2008), pp.301–2.
148 Innocent III, ‘Etsi non displiceat’ (16 January 1205), Grayzel, Vol. 1, pp.104–8; Simonsohn,
pp.82–4.
149 Innocent III, ‘Etsi non displiceat’, Grayzel, Vol. 1, pp.104–8; Simonsohn, pp.82–4.
150 Innocent III, ‘Si parietem cordis’ (29 May 1207), Grayzel, Vol. 1, p.124; Simonsohn, p.92.
151 Innocent III, ‘Ut contra crudelissimos’, Grayzel, Vol. 1 (9 October 1208), p.132; Simonsohn,
pp.94–5. He also repeated this call in his general crusading letter ‘Quia maior’ calling for the Fifth
Crusade to the Near East. See Innocent III, ‘Quia maior nunc’ (22 April 1213), Grayzel, Vol. 1, p.136;
Simonsohn, p.97.