Western Civilization

of the abbey’s relics by saying, “There is kept there a

thing more precious than gold,... the right arm of St.

Oswald.... This we have seen with our own eyes and

have kissed, and have handled with our own hands....

There are kept here also part of his ribs and of the soil

on which he fell.”^8 The monk went on to list additional

relics possessed by the abbey, which were said to

include two pieces of Jesus’s swaddling clothes, pieces

of Jesus’s manger, and part of the five loaves of bread

with which Jesus fed five thousand people. Because the

holiness of the saint was considered to be inherent in

his relics, these objects were believed to be capable of

healing people or producing other miracles.

Voices of Protest and Intolerance

The desire for more personal and deeper religious expe-

rience, which characterized the spiritual revival of the

High Middle Ages, also led people in directions hostile

to the institutional church. From the twelfth century

on, heresy—the holding of religious doctrines different

from the orthodox teachings of the church as deter-

mined by church authorities—became a serious prob-

lem for the Catholic Church.

The best-known heresy of the twelfth and thirteenth

centuries was Catharism (KA-thuh-riz-um). The Cathars

(the wordCatharmeans “pure”) were often called Albi-

gensians (al-buh-JEN-see-unz) after the city of Albi, one

of their strongholds in southern France. They believed

in a dualist system in which good and evil were separate

and distinct. Things of the spirit were good because they

were created by God, the source of light; things of the

world were evil because they were created by Satan, the

prince of darkness. Humans, too, were enmeshed in du-

alism. Their souls, which were good, were trapped in

material bodies, which were evil. According to the

Cathars, the Catholic Church, itself a materialistic insti-

tution, had nothing to do with God and was essentially

evil. There was no need to follow its teachings or recog-

nize its authority. The Cathar movement gained valuable

support from important nobles in southern France and

northern Italy.

The spread of heresy in southern France alarmed

the church authorities. Pope Innocent III appealed to

the nobles of northern France for acrusade(a military

campaign in defense of Christianity) against the here-

tics. The crusade against the Albigensians, which began

in the summer of 1209 and lasted for almost two de-

cades, was a bloody fight. Thousands of heretics (and

innocents) were slaughtered, including entire popula-

tions of some towns. In Beziers, for example, seven

thousand men, women, and children were massacred

when they took refuge in the local church.

Southern France was devastated, but since Cathar-

ism persisted, the Catholic Church devised a regular

method for discovering and dealing with heretics. The

Holy Office, as the papal Inquisition was called, was a

formal court whose job it was to ferret out and try her-

etics. Anyone accused of heresy who refused to confess

was considered guilty and was turned over to the secu-

lar authorities for execution. To the Christians of the

thirteenth century, who believed that there was only

one path to salvation, heresy was a crime against God

and against humanity, and force was justified to save

souls from damnation. The fanaticism and fear

unleashed in the struggle against heretics were also

used against others, especially the Jews.

PERSECUTION OF THE JEWS The Jews were the only reli-

gious minority in medieval Europe that was allowed to

practice a non-Christian religion. But the religious en-

thusiasm of the High Middle Ages produced an outburst

of intolerance against the supposed enemies of Christi-

anity. After crusades were launched against the Muslims

starting in 1096, Christians took up the search for ene-

mies at home, persecuting Jews in France and the

Expulsion of Albigensian Heretics.In 1209, Pope Innocent

III authorized a crusade against the heretical Albigensians. In

this medieval illustration, French knights are shown expelling

Albigensian heretics from the town of Carcassonne near Albi,

an Albigensian stronghold in southern France.

British Library, London//

ª

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238 Chapter 10 The Rise of Kingdoms and the Growth of Church Power

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