medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
>
>My understanding is that "Renaud" (Raginaldus) de Mouçon, Bishop of Chartres
>1183-1217, was some kind of active participant in the "crusade" against the
>Albigensians.
He was indeed, as were a host of other Northern French Bishops.
I recall no instances of him actually shedding blood personally,
however, and a quick perusal of the indices of the major sources for
the crusade don't offer any (although they are not perfect indices).
The prelates in the crusade, at least in Vaux-de-Cernay and the
canso, seem rather keen on killing lots of depraved heretics, and
anyone else who is in their way but I can't point to any instances of
them doing the actual killing.
It's worth noting that the authors might [well, are] distorting
things a bit. In the account by Puylaurens, which is very brief but
also unusually balanced, he makes a point of relating how the Bishop
of Toulouse (portrayed in the other sources as quite gung-ho to
entrap and kill heretics) tried to save people in a particular town
from the ravages of the indiscriminate brutality of the albigensian
crusade.
One must wonder whether we have so many account of brutal prelates
because it "made good copy" so to speak... the audience liked to
hear of violent stuff so that, rather than boring preaching for peace
etc is what often appears.
[Actually, I'm playing Devil's advocate here. I tend to think that
many prelates really were rather violent and bloodthirsty :)]
Cheers,
Nicole
--
Nicole Morgan Schulman <[log in to unmask]>
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Omittamus studia dulce est desipere et carpamus dulcia iuventutis tenere
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