The valiant women of Toulouse

who used a catapult to kill a hated crusader general

The anonymous heroines of Toulouse: In the early 1200s the pope called a crusade against Languedoc, to stamp out the Cathars, numerous in the south of France. Simon de Montfort, the leader of the crusader army, beseiged Toulouse three times, and looted the city. The last seige lasted for nine months, when the women of Toulouse killed him with a stone they hurled from a catapult on the city walls. These "donas e tozas e mulhers" (noblewomen, little girls and wives) smashed in the head of their hated enemy, as an Occitan Song of the Cathar Wars (laisse 205) tells us:

Ac dins una peireira, que fe us carpenters
Qu'es de Sent Cerni traita la peireira e•l solers
E tiravan la donas e tozas e molhers
E venc tot dreit la peira lai on era mestiers
E feric si lo comte sobre l'elm qu'es d'acers,
Que•ls olhs e las cervelas e•Ls caichals estremiers
E•l front e Las maichelas li partic a cartiers;
E•l coms cazec en terra mortz e sagnens e niers.

"There was in the town a mangonel built by our carpenters
And dragged with its platform from St Sernin.
It was operated by noblewomen, by little girls and men's wives,
And now a stone hit just where it was needed
Striking Count Simon on his steel helmet
Shattering his eyes, brains, and back teeth,
And splintering his forehead and jaw.
Bleeding and black, the Count dropped dead on the ground."

The lines "the stone went straight to where it was needed" appear in French and Occitanian in this modern commemoration. I could not find any representation, medieval or modern of the women's military feat, so this plaque will have to do—although it does not mention the women's feat, either. This well-researched site further tells us:

"Simon de Montfort left few friends in the lands he pillaged and tried to rule. He continues to be hated to this day. The consensus is that the writer of the Song of the Cathar Wars had it about right [laisse 208]. His scathing words about Simon's glowing epitaph in the Cathedral of St Nazaire in Carcassonne (now the Basilica of Saint-Nazaire, where Simon was once buried) are given below, detailing his atrocities:

E ditz e l'epictafi, cel qui•l sab ben legir,
Qu'el es sans ez Es martirs e que deu resperir
E dins e•l gaug mirable heretar a florir
E portar la corona e e•l regne sezir.
Ez ieu ai auzit dire c'aisi's deu avenir
Si, per homes aucirre ni per sanc espanir
Ni per esperitz perdre ni per mortz cosentir
E per mals cosselhs creire e per focs abrandir
E per baros destruire e per Paratge aunir
E per Las terras toldre e per Orgilh suffrir
E per los mals escenre e pels bes escantir
E per donas aucirre e per efans delire,
Pot hom en aquest segle Jhesu Crist comquerir,
El deu porta corona e e•l cel resplandi

The epitaph says, for those who can read it,
That he is a saint and martyr who shall breathe again
And shall in wondrous joy inherit and flourish
And wear a crown and sit on a heavenly throne.
And I have heard it said that this must be so -
If by killing men and spilling blood,
By wasting souls, and preaching murder,
By following evil counsels, and raising fires,
By ruining noblemen and besmirching paratge,
By pillaging the country, and by exalting Pride,
By stoking up wickedness and stifling good,
By massacring women and their infants,
A man can win Jesus in this world,
Then Simon surely wears a crown, resplendent in heaven."

Crusaders beseige city, tomb of Simon de Montfort in Basilica of St-Nazaire, Carcassonne

The article then cites an explanation of the Occitan concept of "paratge": "Paratge" translates literally into English as ‘peerage,’ but this gives almost no clue to the significance or meaning of the word in medieval Occitania.

"Paratge denoted a whole world-view, almost a philosophy, as alien to the modern mind as it was to the medieval French Crusaders. The word meant something more than honour, courtesy, nobility, chivalry or gentility though our concepts of honour, courtesy, nobility, chivalry and gentility all owe something to the concept of "paratge"."

This concept ties in with a whole body of scholarship around the Aquitanian "courts of love," and the strong female influence in the troubadour tradition (trouvères). While this aristocratic formulation of a more gentle chivalry (meant originally "knighthood") did contribute to the woman-on-a-pedestal trope, it was a welcome counterweight to the brutal patriarchy of the northern chansons de geste, fixated on acts of war.

"In the latter part of the Canso (The Song of the Cathar Wars) written in Occitan, the writer is horrified and mystified that the French invaders seem to have no respect for paratge, or even any understanding of it. The charge is more serious than any other - indeed it probably encompasses all the others - deceit, brutality, vandalism, lying, hypocrisy, even mass-murder. Here is an observation, laisse 137, referring to the French Catholic Crusader victory over the joint forces of King Pedro II of Aragon and Count Raymond VI of Toulouse defending their lands at Muret:

Toto lo mons ne valg mens, de ver o sapiatz,
Car Paratges NE fo destruitz e decassatz
E totz Crestianesmes aonitz abassatz.

"It diminished the whole world, be sure of that,
For it destroyed and drove out paratge,
It disgraced and shamed all Christendom."

“Kill them all, God will know his own.” -bishop to knights

The same site analizes the notorious line attributed to a bishop in the crusader army, on taking a beseiged city: “Kill them all, God will know his own.” It gives evidence that this attitude was endemic among crusaders and Catholic clergy:

"In recent times some people have started to voice doubts about whether Arnaud Amaury ever spoke the words attributed to him and this has become a point of contention between Catholic apologists and others. Below is a summary of the relevant arguments and sources:

Reasons to doubt that Arnaud Amaury spoke the words "Kill them all…":
"The words are too appalling to have been spoken by any senior churchman."

Reasons to believe that Arnaud Amaury did speak the words "Kill them all…"

"The words are consistent with the recorded statements of contemporary senior churchmen, many of whom also led armies. Such leaders often talked about extirpation or extermination, and were responsible for numerous mass slaughters. Like almost all of their statements justifying killing in general and genocide in particular, this one is grounded in scripture. The words are based on a citation from 2 Tim. 2:19: "... The Lord knoweth them that are his. ...".

"To take another example, here is an extract from the The Song of the Cathar Wars [Canso, laisse 214] recording threats made by Bertrand, a Cardinal of Rome concerning the siege of Toulouse (1216-1218) less than a decade after the massacre at Béziers (this threat is based on Old Testament passages commending genocides):

Que•l cardenal de Roma prezicans e ligans
Que la mortz e lo glazis an tot primeiramens,
Aissi que dins Tholoza ni•ls apertenemens
Negus hom no i remanga ni nulha res vivens
Ni dona ni donzela ni nulha femna prens
Ni autra creatura ni nulhs enfans laitens,
Que tuit prengan martiri en las flamas ardens.

'The Cardinal from Rome proclaiming
That death and slaughter must lead the way,
And that in and around Toulouse
No man shall remain alive,
Nor noble Lady, girl or pregnant woman,
Nor any created thing, no sucking infant,
But all must die in the burning flames.'

"The principle was not restricted to Crusade leaders, and was articulated by other Churchmen. The Bolognese legal scholar Johannes Teutonicus wrote in 1217 (around the same time as the above) in a commentary on Gratian: "If it can be shown that some heretics are in a city then all of the inhabitants can be burnt."

[Johannes Teutonicus, Glossa ordinaria to Gratian's Decretum, edited by Augustin and Prosper Caravita (Venice, Apud iuntas, 1605), C 23, q 5, c32 - cited by Mark Pegg, A Most Holy War, OUP, 2008, p 77]

"The massacre is consistent with contemporary and sympathetic records of the Crusaders' strategy. According to the Canso, [laisse 5], Innocent III, Arnaud, Milo and 12 cardinals planned their strategy in Rome in early 1208:

'There it was that they made the decision that led to so much sorrow, that left so many men dead with their guts spilled out and so many great ladies and pretty girls naked and cold, stripped of gown and cloak. From beyond Montpellier as far as Bordeaux, any that rebelled were to be utterly destroyed.'

"Again, according to the Canso, laisse 21, the Crusader Army under Arnaud's command confirmed plans for mass slaughters, exactly like this one, immediately before the siege at Béziers."The lords from France and Paris, laymen and clergy, princes and marquises, all agreed that at every stronghold the crusader army attacked, any garrison that refused to surrender should be slaughtered wholesale, once the stronghold had been taken by force."

"and the reasoning behind this is explicit: 'They would then meet with no resistance anywhere, as men would be so terrified at what had already happened. That is how they took Montreal and Fanjeaux and surrounding country. Otherwise I promise you they could never have taken them. That is why they massacred them at Béziers, killing them all.'

"Yet again, no fewer than three separate sources tell us that Renaud de Montpeyroux, the Bishop of Béziers, having consulted with the Crusaders, indicated to the citizens that their blood would be on their heads if they did not surrender the town and hand over their Cathar neighbours. (Canso 16-17, Historia albigensis §89, and a letter to Innocent III from Arnaud and Milo referred to below). Here is the Canso's version:

'... if they refused to follow this [the bishop's] counsel they risked losing everything and being put to the sword.'

"As WA and MD Sibly point out "These accounts suggest that at this stage the crusaders did not intend to spare those who resisted them, and the slaughter at Béziers was consistent with this" (WA and MD Sibly, The History of the Albigensian Crusade, Appendix B, p 292)

"Arnaud Amaury promoted this crusade specifically to kill. The whole point of any Crusade was Holy War — in which the enemy are killed. Raymond-Roger Trencavel, Viscount Béziers had already offered his submission before the siege started - so the Crusaders could easily have avoided bloodshed if they had wanted to.

"The words "Kill them all ..." are consistent with everything we know about the character and record of Arnaud Amaury, who seems to have taken every opportunity to maximise the death toll among those he regarded as his enemies. After the famously brutal Simon de Montfort was appointed to take over military command of the Crusaders, Arnaud Amaury as papal legate occasionally overruled him, demanding more punitive action than Simon favoured, as for example at Minerve.

"As one historian explains 'Extraordinary holiness and extraordinary cruelty were never incompatible during the crusade - indeed, more often than not, they went together by necessity. The redeeming majesty of His love was revealed only through wholesale slaughter honouring Him.' (Mark Pegg, A Most Holy War, OUP, 2008, p 161).

"It is also significant that in all of the contemporaty records and comentaries, not a single Catholic writer records a hint of regret for the massacre. On the contrary it is lauded as just and divinely inspired. This is in itself evidence that such an attrocity was regarded as a perfectly normal event for holy Crusaders."

The problem is, this long-ago medieval history is still with us. White nationalist extremists have embraced crusader imagery (indeed, the KKK was already doing so over a century ago). Today, they wear t-shirts and other insignia quoting the murderous words of Arnaud, translated into modern US parlance:

These crusaders continued to be glorified in modern art, like this painting of the death of Simon de Montfort. The women who felled him are once again not shown.

The Albigensian Crusade against the Cathars of Languedoc marked a new level of militarized repression against “heretics.” After the northern French armies brutalized the south into submission, the next step was the Papal Inquisition (which had already been preceded by a half-century of Episcopal Inquisitions). It waged a culture-war, by means of inviting denunciations, followed by arrests, interrogations, and torture, followed by a variety of penalties, ranging from public abjuration in penitential garments, to imprisonment, exile, and burning at the stake.

Burning Cathars at Montségur

This ferocious repression was not without precedent. We can look back to the persecution of heretics and pagans in the christianized Roman empire, from the mid-4th century on. I write about that in my open-access chapters The Imperial Church and War on Pagans, from my digital book Magna Mater, Paulianity, and the Imperial Church. (Vol. V in the series Secret History of the Witches)