I'm happy to report that I am reading a serious book at last! We have a good bookshop in Barlick now and I found a copy of 'Massacre at Montsegur. A history of the Albigensian Crusade' by Zoe Oldenbourg. I've started on it over Xmas.
I've always been interested in the Crusades and over the years have read a lot and learned about some of the reasons behind them. I learned that the Pope gave anyone who went on Crusade Absolution against sin and in effect the crusaders believed they had a 'get out of gaol free card' which meant they were in no danger of passing through purgatory, the waiting room for all souls before they were judged for heaven or hell. Knowing what a universal belief purgatory was meant that this made sense as a motive.
There was another advantage to Crusade that I wasn't aware of until I started to read this book. Anyone who went on Crusade was protected from being harried by creditors as his goods were held to be sacrosanct for the whole per4iod of his absence. This meant that the larger part of the the crusading army were either sinners anxious to gain God's pardon and escape purgatory or debt-ridden wretches escaping their creditors.
There was a third category in this case. Many of the volunteers for this crusade were already sworn for crusade to the Holy Land and the Albigensian crusade was to the mountains of the Languedoc (
LINK) In the South of France which was a far easier enterprise.
So, there you go, you can always learn something and as I know nothing about this crusade against the Cathars (who were Christians!) (
LINK) and I'm looking forward to learning about them. It reinforces my deep mistrust of the actions of the crusading Popes.