ALBIGENSIAN CRUSADE 179
by the Lyonnaise merchant Peter Waldes, and his French or Lombard followers, offered further proof that a revolution of the spirit was in progress.
This revolution was quiet and peaceful at first. In Southern France, however, a rival of the Church began to emerge. This, the richest and most fruitful country of Europe, had been of old a fertile soil for Gnostic rebellion against Christendom. Its spirited, sense-loving population has often wavered between unlimited devotion to pleasure and a nihilistic renouncement of life. Nowhere else in any Christian land did the Manichean dualism of the Cathari flourish as it did here. Before the year 1000 this doctrine had spread westward from the Bal- kans to the Champagne district and had erected its first chapels in Lombardy. In the French south, Albi was its headquarters; and from this city the sect took its name. Lust of life and hatred of life were peculiarly or rather very naturally mingled in the activity and teachings of the group. The "perfect" and the "comforted" carried asceticism to the point of suicide; but the "simple" lived mer- rily and gaily, scoffed at eternity and followed the counsels of the troubadours concerning women. When death came it was merely to open to them the door of Paradise by reason of the imposition of hands, the consolamentum by one who was "perfect." If the body was created by the Devil just as the soul is created by God, what dif- ference could it make whether the body had offered homage to pleas- ure or to flagellation? Complete pessimism regarding marriage, the family, and social obligations were contrasted with the edifying exam- ple given by the truly saintly conduct of the strict observer, which con- duct the people then compared with the scandal so frequently given by priests, monks and prelates of the Church. Since the Albigensians hated Rome, which they termed the Church of temporal power, of darkness and of the Devil, the nobles encouraged the Cathari in every possible way. Not unjustly had Innocent said at the Lateran Coun- cil that all the deterioration of the people proceeded chiefly from the clergy. And now a new spirit of purity, discipline and strict observ- ance spread as the new Orders gained strength.
The Albigensian War broke out in 1209 and lasted through twenty years of manifold cruelty. Innocent tried in every possible way to gain the upper hand over the rival church by peaceful means, but his
i8o
