# Reconsidering our view of medieval Catholic Europe **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 1, 2011, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reconsidering-our-view-of-medieval-catholic-europe/583959 "2011-06-01T14:27:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2011, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reconsidering-our-view-of-medieval-catholic-europe/583959/81 "2011-06-02T20:00:58Z")
> [@Sailboat](#): > > But that’s a dumb argument. > > Good point. And from one of the SDMB’s champions of Christianity, no less. I’d have no problems with that claim, if it were true. Inventing new weapons is an aspect of technological superiority, whether we like it or not. However, the ‘peaceful Chinese used gunpowder in colourful fireworks, while the practical Euros quickly made cannon using it’ meme is, I think, a bit of a fairy tale. According to _Firearms: A Global History to 1700_ by Kenneth Chase (2002): “The earliest known formula for gunpowder can be found in a Chinese work dating probably from the 800s. The Chinese wasted little time in applying it to warfare, and they produced a variety of gunpowder weapons, including flamethrowers, rockets, bombs, and land mines, before inventing firearms.” The Chinese originally used gunpowder in flamethrower-type weapons: > **[Wujing Zongyao](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wujing_Zongyao#Gunpowder_formulas_and_weapons)** > > The Wujing Zongyao (Chinese: 武經總要), sometimes rendered in English as the Complete Essentials for the Military Classics, is a Chinese military compendium written from around 1040 to 1044. > The book was compiled during the Northern Song dynasty by Zeng Gongliang (曾公亮), Ding Du (丁度) and Yang Weide (楊惟德), whose writing influenced many later Chinese military writers. The compendium was published under the auspices of Emperor Renzong of Song, who also authored the book's preface. The book covers a ... Later, they developed “fire lances” (basically, flamethrowers that shot shrapnel out also, like a primitive shot-gun) and, eventually, what we now know as cannons and guns: > **[Huolongjing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huolongjing)** > > The Huolongjing (traditional Chinese: 火龍經; simplified Chinese: 火龙经; pinyin: Huǒ Lóng Jīng; Wade-Giles: Huo Lung Ching; rendered in English as Fire Drake Manual or Fire Dragon Manual), also known as Huoqitu (“Firearm Illustrations”), is a Chinese military treatise compiled and edited by Jiao Yu and Liu Bowen of the early Ming dynasty (1368–1683) during the 14th century. The Huolongjing is primarily based on the text known as Huolong Shenqi Tufa (Illustrations of Divine Fire Dragon Engines), whic... ---
**Author:** ![mlees](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba8739/32.png) [@mlees](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mlees)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2011, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reconsidering-our-view-of-medieval-catholic-europe/583959/82 "2011-06-02T20:06:07Z")
I have no dog in this fight. Wiki says that types of different sails in ocean going ships were developed in different parts of the world independently of each other. > **[Sail](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sail#History_of_sails)** > > A sail is a tensile structure, which is made from fabric or other membrane materials, that uses wind power to propel sailing craft, including sailing ships, sailboats, windsurfers, ice boats, and even sail-powered land vehicles. Sails may be made from a combination of woven materials—including canvas or polyester cloth, laminated membranes or bonded filaments, usually in a three- or four-sided shape. > A sail provides propulsive force via a combination of lift and drag, depending on its angle of ... > [@](#): > > Square sails mounted on yardarms perpendicular to the boat’s hull are very good for downwind sailing; they dominated in the ancient Mediterranean and spread to Northern Europe, and were independently invented in China and Ecuador. Although fore-and-aft rigs have become more popular on modern yachts, square sails continued to power full-rigged ships through the Age of Sail and to the present day. Triangular fore-and-aft lateen sails were invented in the Mediterranean and independently in the Pacific (crab claw sail), and continue to be used throughout the world. During the 16th-19th centuries other fore-and-aft sails were developed in Europe, such as the spritsail, gaff rig, jib/genoa/staysail, and Bermuda rig, which give better upwind sailing ability. Also, hull forms (Galley \> Cog \> Caravel \> Galleon\> Fluyt etc.) continued to evolve throughout the eras in question, with, of course, the “biggest” changes coming towards the end of that time frame. I imagine a lot of little detail changes occured to make the later hull forms more practical (how to assemble a wood structure for more strength, rope making, tar/pitch, rigging designs, sail weaving, navigation, for example). I am not an expert. Just tossing out ideas. I think the Catholic Church got a lot of flak for repressing or retarding science, but why in the world would the church care (in a negative way) about sail design? Pigmentation experiments (art)? Pressing/growing grapes? Better ways to get a finer weave of cloth? However, I am not going to go as far as the OP though. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2011, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reconsidering-our-view-of-medieval-catholic-europe/583959/83 "2011-06-02T20:28:25Z")
> [@sh1bu1](#): > > I like the idea that moving from using gunpowder for fireworks to using it for cannons is an example of how European culture was superior. It is, it is. Look at it this way: It took the same kind of mind to invent firearms and antibiotics. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2011, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reconsidering-our-view-of-medieval-catholic-europe/583959/84 "2011-06-02T20:41:27Z")
I can understand the OP’s point - that the nasty rep of medieval Europe has traditionally been overblown. The very term was coined during the Renaissance, to differentiate the new, brighter, shinier Europe emerging from a period of “decline” - the periodization attributed to this fellow: > **[Leonardo Bruni](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonardo_Bruni)** > > Leonardo Bruni or Leonardo Aretino (c. 1370 – March 9, 1444) was an Italian humanist, historian and statesman, often recognized as the most important humanist historian of the early Renaissance. He has been called the first modern historian. He was the earliest person to write using the three-period view of history: Antiquity, Middle Ages, and Modern. The dates Bruni used to define the periods are not exactly what modern historians use today, but he laid the conceptual groundwork for a trip Leona... Needless to say, the Renaissance and Reformation did not of necessity create any improvement in the things compained about in this thread - if anything, in some places things got _worse_ (the history of the Renaissance popes, and the repeated bashing of Italy by various national armies of France, Spain, HRE, etc. during the ‘enlightened’ Renaissance era; the religious persecutions triggered by the Reformation, leading to genocidal conflicts like the 30 Years War … ) The traditional historical metric of ‘Roman Empire - decline - dark age - medieval dreariness - oh wow, Renaissance!’ does conceal as much as reveal. Though the OP is, I think, not on solid ground with many of his claims, as discussed in detail above. ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2011, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reconsidering-our-view-of-medieval-catholic-europe/583959/85 "2011-06-03T01:51:05Z")
> [@tagos](#): > > An entire town slaughtered. But I guess the OP will come back and argue that unless the Pope was there personally clubbing heretics like seals it doesn’t count. You may have missed that the Cathars more or less started it. Despite their colorfully charming reputation, they were a deeply nasty people who sponsored mass banditry and murder. The Albigensian crusade fell to killing them all because they broke every vow to stop doing bad shit. It was only after the Albigensians proved they wouldn’t or couldn’t stop. Killing off the populace wasn’t nice, but it made the point and stopped the killing _others_, no less than we nuked the shit out Hiroshima and for basically the same reason. But I’m sure you can find lots of specific examples of Catholics being nasty. I could happily find you a number myself. This does not hcnage the fact that the Church changed the very nature of war, changed the very nature of what moral rights people had, and changed the very nature of what civilized people did. It was not the religious men of the Church who tried to end all that and return the world of the cruel and heartless wars of theft and destruction, but the more secular men. Even the Spanish, cruel as the were in the New World\* wound up building new nations entirely. \*Though with the charming habit of letting the least devout control the most. The early priests who ministered to the Spanish were basically hired frauds, while the real priests ministered to the AmerIndians. ---
**Author:** ![MEBuckner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mebuckner/32/2896_2.png) [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2011, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reconsidering-our-view-of-medieval-catholic-europe/583959/86 "2011-06-03T02:56:52Z")
> [@smiling\_bandit](#): > > You may have missed that the Cathars more or less started it. Despite their colorfully charming reputation, they were a deeply nasty people who sponsored mass banditry and murder. The Albigensian crusade fell to killing them all because they broke every vow to stop doing bad shit. It was only after the Albigensians proved they wouldn’t or couldn’t stop. Killing off the populace wasn’t nice, but it made the point and stopped the killing _others_, no less than we nuked the shit out Hiroshima and for basically the same reason. Do you have a cite for this? It’s clear that the Albigensians were, theologically speaking, very far from Christian orthodoxy, but even the [1917 _Catholic Encyclopedia_](http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01267e.htm) does not seem to claim they were violent bandits and habitual mass murderers (“War and capital punishment were absolutely condemned”), though there are some mentions of apparent tit-for-tat atrocities–and _that_ source would surely emphasize it if there were any basis for such claims. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2011, 4:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reconsidering-our-view-of-medieval-catholic-europe/583959/87 "2011-06-03T04:39:35Z")
> [@smiling\_bandit](#): > > You may have missed that the Cathars more or less started it. Despite their colorfully charming reputation, they were a deeply nasty people who sponsored mass banditry and murder. The Albigensian crusade fell to killing them all because they broke every vow to stop doing bad shit. It was only after the Albigensians proved they wouldn’t or couldn’t stop. Killing off the populace wasn’t nice, but it made the point and stopped the killing _others_, no less than we nuked the shit out Hiroshima and for basically the same reason. What the hell are you talking about ? ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2011, 5:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reconsidering-our-view-of-medieval-catholic-europe/583959/88 "2011-06-03T05:20:46Z")
Well, Malcolm Lambert in his book about the Cathars actually references the Archbishop of Pisa at the time claiming that one of the reasons for the early success of the Cathars is that they managed to restrain the mountain lords from banditry. The Albigensian crusade was sparked in the first place by the assassination of Pierre de Castlenau, the Papal Legate, by forces loyal to the pro-Cathar Count of Toulouse, and there was some violence against inquisitors and Church lands, but a lot of that happened after the Albigensian Crusade and inquisition started. There was also the _endura_, of course, where _perfecti_ would starve themselves to death, but that was inner directed violence. I don’t think it’s right to say that the Cathars were particularly violent or sponsoring of banditry, or at least not any more than the general public. In general, about the Cathars, I think part of the reason for the violence is simply that groups are harsher towards heretics and apostates than they are towards non-believers, because the non-believer is ignorant of the truth, while the apostate knows the truth and rejects it. ---
**Author:** ![Argent\_Towers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e8c25b/32.png) [@Argent\_Towers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Argent_Towers)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2011, 7:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reconsidering-our-view-of-medieval-catholic-europe/583959/89 "2011-06-03T07:02:12Z")
[QUOTE=sh1bu1] I like the idea that moving from using gunpowder for fireworks to using it for cannons is an example of how European culture was superior. [/QUOTE] > [@Sailboat](#): > > Good point. And from one of the SDMB’s champions of Christianity, no less. I would rather be shot to death than killed by any of the weapons used on the battlefield before the invention of firearms. I understand the supposedly-clever point being made here, but under scrutiny, there’s really nothing clever about it. Nobody said that European _culture_ was _morally_ superior to anyone else, just that they found a more efficient way to fight wars. Even if the Chinese did not use gunpowder for warfare - and, as has been posted previously, it seems that they _did_ - they also had no problem using arrows, swords and spears, all of which are orders of magnitude more grisly and painful than bullets and cannonballs. So it’s very silly to try to idealize the Chinese in any way just because they (supposedly) used gunpowder only for fireworks. ---
**Author:** ![tagos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@tagos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tagos)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2011, 10:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reconsidering-our-view-of-medieval-catholic-europe/583959/90 "2011-06-03T10:56:59Z")
> [@smiling\_bandit](#): > > This does not hcnage the fact that the Church changed the very nature of war, changed the very nature of what moral rights people had, and changed the very nature of what civilized people did. So you assert. I have yet to see any evidence for this assertion. Against which there is a mountain of historical evidence that Christian armies continued to behave like barbarians all over the world for hundreds of years. ---
**Author:** ![tagos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@tagos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tagos)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2011, 11:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reconsidering-our-view-of-medieval-catholic-europe/583959/91 "2011-06-03T11:09:58Z")
[The Requiremento](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Requerimiento) > [@](#): > > In 1452, Pope Nicholas V issued the papal bull Dum Diversas, which legitimized the slave trade, at least as a result of war. It granted Afonso V of Portugal the right to reduce any “Saracens, pagans and any other unbelievers” to hereditary slavery.[3] However, the Dominican friars who arrived at the Spanish settlement at Santo Domingo in 1510 strongly denounced the enslavement of the local Indigenous residents. Along with other priests, they opposed the native peoples’ treatment as unjust and illegal in an audience with the Spanish king and in the subsequent royal commission.[4] > > Comparing the situation in the Old World and New World: in Spain’s wars against the Moors, the clerics claimed that Muslims had knowledge of Christ and rejected Him, so that waging a Crusade against them was legitimate; in contrast, in Spain’s wars against the Indigenous peoples of the Americas and Native Americans, wars against those who had never come into contact with Christianity were illegitimate. Responding to this impeding clerical position, the Requerimiento was issued, providing a religious justification for wars against and conquest of the local populations of pre-existing residents, on the pretext of their refusing the legitimate authority of the Kings of Spain and Portugal as granted by the Pope. > > The 1510 Requerimiento, in relation to the Spanish invasion of the Americas and subsequent Spanish colonization of the Americas: demanded that the local populations accept Spanish rule and allow preaching to them by Catholic missionaries; on pain of war, slavery or death. The Requerimiento did not demand conversion, although the Indian Reductions through the Encomienda and Mission systems often did.[5][6] This claim provided a legal loophole for enslavement of the population as rebellious vassals if they resisted, and the document stated: "We emphasise that any deaths that result from this [rejection of Christian rule] are your fault… The Catholic Church was and remains to this day a moral blight on humanity and any attempt to claim the it somehow was a humanitarian force in the middle ages is pissing into the historical wind. ---
**Author:** ![jinty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/dbc845/32.png) [@jinty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jinty)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2011, 11:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reconsidering-our-view-of-medieval-catholic-europe/583959/92 "2011-06-03T11:33:25Z")
[QUOTE=Smiling Bandit] You may have missed that the Cathars more or less started it. Despite their colorfully charming reputation, they were a deeply nasty people who sponsored mass banditry and murder. [/QUOTE] > [@MEBuckner](#): > > Do you have a cite for this? Yes, I’ll second that request. Both your claims - that they started it _and_ that they sponsored lawlessness - are at odds with what I’ve read, i.e. that the Cathars’ main “crimes” were heresy and unwillingness to give a shit about the RC church’s demands. ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2011, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reconsidering-our-view-of-medieval-catholic-europe/583959/93 "2011-06-03T14:34:09Z")
> [@Simplicio](#): > > Your sticking the qualifier “water powered” in front of everything. But that wasn’t in your OP. Not to put too fine a point on it, but I did: “Someone in the Middle Ages came up with the bright idea of using a water mill to pulp the fiber, and since that time paper has been cheap and plentiful.” > [@](#): > > Again, your requalifying what you originally said. You said “crop rotation”, not specifically the three-field system. The three-field system is the same as crop rotation. The Romans planted one crop in a field. They didn’t know about the fact that cycling through different crops could help restore the soil. What they did was not crop rotation. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2011, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reconsidering-our-view-of-medieval-catholic-europe/583959/94 "2011-06-03T14:39:15Z")
> [@tagos](#): > > The Catholic Church was and remains to this day a moral blight on humanity and any attempt to claim the it somehow was a humanitarian force in the middle ages is pissing into the historical wind. Why consign them to a moral blight any more than their contemporaries? As even your own quotation shows, the only ones who made any noise at all in defense of the native population were churchmen. The Church actually defended against the abuses of the Conquistadors, very much moreso than any other institution at the time. That it did not do so sufficiently does not mean that they were worse than the lay leadership. ---
**Author:** ![jinty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/dbc845/32.png) [@jinty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jinty)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2011, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reconsidering-our-view-of-medieval-catholic-europe/583959/95 "2011-06-03T18:03:48Z")
> [@Ludovic](#): > > Why consign them to a moral blight any more than their contemporaries? As even your own quotation shows, the only ones who made any noise at all in defense of the native population were churchmen. The Church actually defended against the abuses of the Conquistadors, very much moreso than any other institution at the time. That it did not do so sufficiently does not mean that they were worse than the lay leadership. Of course the church wasn’t wholly evil - a couple of bad popes could be followed by some genuinely good ones, but the trouble was that both good and bad ones had such enormous power that the bad ones were able to act out their wickedness to very ill effect. Papal bulls like Dum Diversas mentioned above and [Ad Extirpanda](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_extirpanda) (which was used against the Cathars) are shocking evidence of this. These were frightful partisan laws legitimising violence against an out-group, written by some thoughtful theologian sitting down and devising reasons why it was not just legal to kill and torture that other lot, it was actually your moral duty to God to do so. Oh and by the way lads, when you’ve finished torturing them, help yourself to their stuff: [QUOTE=Ad Extirpanda] The bull conceded to the State a portion of the property to be confiscated from convicted heretics. [/QUOTE] ---
**Author:** ![Simplicio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c37758/32.png) [@Simplicio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simplicio)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2011, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reconsidering-our-view-of-medieval-catholic-europe/583959/96 "2011-06-03T18:15:37Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > Not to put too fine a point on it, but I did: “Someone in the Middle Ages came up with the bright idea of using a water mill to pulp the fiber, and since that time paper has been cheap and plentiful.” You didn’t mention it at all in the context of fulling mills. We already went over your mention of paper mills being water powered. > [@](#): > > The three-field system is the same as crop rotation. The Romans planted one crop in a field. They didn’t know about the fact that cycling through different crops could help restore the soil. What they did was not crop rotation. Yes it [was](http://www.mendeley.com/research/crop-rotations-21st-century/) ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2011, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reconsidering-our-view-of-medieval-catholic-europe/583959/97 "2011-06-03T18:49:47Z")
> [@jinty](#): > > Yes, I’ll second that request. Both your claims - that they started it _and_ that they sponsored lawlessness - are at odds with what I’ve read, i.e. that the Cathars’ main “crimes” were heresy and unwillingness to give a shit about the RC church’s demands. Well, they started it in the sense that Raymond of Toulouse’s assassination of the Papal legate was what triggered the crusade, but it’s quite possible the place would have erupted in violence anyway later. ---
**Author:** ![jinty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/dbc845/32.png) [@jinty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jinty)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2011, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reconsidering-our-view-of-medieval-catholic-europe/583959/98 "2011-06-03T20:02:06Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > Well, they started it in the sense that Raymond of Toulouse’s assassination of the Papal legate was what triggered the crusade, but it’s quite possible the place would have erupted in violence anyway later. Yes, but Smiling Bandit claimed it was necessary to “nuke the shit out of” them. What’s the appropriate response for an assassination? (a) find the killers and punish them, or (b) nuke the shit out of the whole population? ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2011, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reconsidering-our-view-of-medieval-catholic-europe/583959/99 "2011-06-03T20:14:10Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > Well, they started it in the sense that Raymond of Toulouse’s assassination of the Papal legate was what triggered the crusade, but it’s quite possible the place would have erupted in violence anyway later. I suppose so, but that boy was going to get capped one way or another. He didn’t do much to endear himself to… well, to anybody really. The local Catholic clergy didn’t like getting bossed around by a man from the Papal FBI who threw his weight around like it was no thang; the nobles certainly didn’t like getting told what to do on their own turf; and as for the people they were quite fond of the Cathars, the prosperity they brought to the region, and their veneer of non-corruption which in their eyes was a step up from Catholic “business as usual”. Besides, that’s not what \*\*smiling \*\*said. He said the Cathars were sponsors of banditry and mass murderers. I have never read anything of the sort. Most of the Cathars were fat burghers and city meisters rejecting materialism and promoting ascetism, I don’t really see where they’d go from there to banditry or violence to others. They weren’t \*fraticelli \*going around plundering monasteries and murdering bishops. Wasn’t them who killed the Papal legate, either - that’s on Raymond VI of Toulouse who, while a friend and protector to the Cathars, wasn’t one himself. And the assassination was probably motivated more by politics and local power plays vs. Rome and Paris than religion anyway. Of course, the same could be said of the crusade itself. It might have been called by the Pope, but the men-at-arms doing the fighting were in it more for the lootin’ and rapin’ than to save their souls while the nobles were probably in it to take the arrogant Southerners down a peg or two. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2011, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reconsidering-our-view-of-medieval-catholic-europe/583959/100 "2011-06-03T20:36:07Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > Wasn’t them who killed the Papal legate, either - that’s on Raymond VI of Toulouse who, while a friend and protector to the Cathars, wasn’t one himself. Sure, but I don’t know that the pope was really interested in making such fine distinctions, given that his man had been killed. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reconsidering-our-view-of-medieval-catholic-europe/583959.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reconsidering-our-view-of-medieval-catholic-europe/583959.md?page=6)