Talk:Albigensian Crusade

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Good article Albigensian Crusade was one of the History good articles, but it has been removed from the list. There are suggestions below for improving the article to meet the good article criteria. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.
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[edit] NPOV

Really needs NPOV.

The information on the Cathars or their destruction needs to be moved to more appropriate articles.

kh7 13:34 Apr 19, 2003 (UTC)

I don't think you can do so sensibly: this may be an argument for this article becoming a detailed subset of the Cathar page, rather than the separating them. There is also grounds to argue that although the formal dates of the Crusade were tight, none the less the persecution, which was the real Crusade, continued much longer, which is why I've added the Montaillou and Weis references here, as they are so deeply rooted in the Crusade they cast interesting lights on the Crusade itself.Jel 13:41, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Montréal vs. Montéal

Early in the article, it's referred to as a piped Montéal (which goes to Montréal, Aude), but later on it's just referred to as Montréal. Is this just two variant spellings, in which case we should go for consistency? Or two different towns? Or a simple typo? I'm not French, so I can't guess. SnowFire 18:47, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

I think it's a typo Ernie G C P Spiggot 17:12, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

I'm sure it's a typo Andrew Dalby 17:55, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

It is. See PL §IX Jel 14:16, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Mariage

Just noticed this in the text "It is interesting to note that it was relatively easy to be acquitted of charges of Albigensianism before the Inquisition. One common method was proof of marriage, as Albigensians denounced the sacrament." News to me, and seems unlikely since lots of ordinary believers did mary. Can anyone provide a good reference? Also, phrasing is arguably POV as mariage (technically matrimony) is a sacrement only to Roman Catholics. Ernie G C P Spiggot 17:12, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Protestants who don't think marriage is a sacrament simply didn't exist at that point in history. The church, which was pretty much all there was apart from the heretics, who were essentially outlaws, thought it was a sacrament at the time. In otherwords the standard position at that time was that it was a sacrament, and the albigensians happened to denounce this standard position. It is important not to fall into the trap of putting historic situations in the context of modern demographics. Clinkophonist 21:25, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Forgive me saying so, but I think you are mistaken in several respects. (a) Your argument is circular (b) what people thought at the time about sacrements is not relevant to this particular argument. It is now POV to refer to sacrements as though they have some objective reality just as much as it to refer to Cathars as heretics. It is important not to fall into the trap of anachronism.(c) I think you'll find that the Cathars and other Gnostic Dualists existed for well over a millennium before the RC Church settled on its seven sacrements. The idea that "the albigensians happened to denounce this standard position" is therefore not really tenable. Nostick 21:03, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
I think you'll find that the Cathars didn't exist for more than 300 years; they certainly didn't exist for well over a millenium. Clinkophonist 00:27, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
I'm sure we're all gratful for your sharing of your deep knowledge of this area. I wonder if you'd be kind enough to let us know when the Gnostic Dualist tradition started and also how you're defining Cathar.Gcp 08:14, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
I don't think you can define Protestantism as starting with Luther or Henry VIII - Luther developped theories of the Bégards/Béguines and other unaffiliated fellowships who were already under attack in the early 1300s by Jan van Ruusbroec, and whose beliefs were certainly influenced by the freethinking of the court of Eleanor of Acquitaine, as well as the theories of Peter Abelard.Jel 22:40, 10 October 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Battle of Bouvines

I'm intrigued by your restoration of the Battle of Bouvines reference to the Albigensian Crusade page. To me it made no sense at all in the context. However I might be wrong. I'd be interested to hear your reasons. --qp10qp 01:45, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

I restored the Battle of Bouvines because it needs to be mentioned in the article. The context of that war/battle is important to understanding the overall sequence of events and what was happening at the time. Battle of Bouvines was not just any old battle it had major historical consequences. -- Stbalbach 01:52, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

You're dead right about that battle, but I have no idea what it has to do with the events of 1208 described in the paragraph in question. Look again:

The powerful count Raymond VI of Toulouse refused to assist and was excommunicated in May, 1207. The Pope called upon the French king, Philippe II, to act against those nobles who permitted Catharism, but Philippe, who was occupied with the Battle of Bouvines, declined to act. Count Raymond met with the papal legate, Pierre de Castelnau, in January 1208, and after an angry meeting . . . etc.

The Battle of Bouvines took place years later, in 1214.--qp10qp 01:59, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

ahh.. what's seven years :) thanks for finding that mistake. -- Stbalbach 03:05, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Bouvines gave rise to King John's sequestration of Simon de Montfort's English holdings, whence his participation in the Crusade. It also created a power vacuum in Acquitaine. The battle was simply the culmination of years of neglect by John, both as Regent and as King, during which time Philippe did his best to stir things up. The proximity of the Cathar lands was threatening to the Papacy in Avignon, particularly given that they inspired a revival of 18th-century proportions in the area, but de Montfort and the Legates were in pursuit of Templar assets as well - I have found archive statements from the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries of a legendary treasure parked by them under the walls of a family castle of his (not Monfort l'Aumery, by the way). Jel 12:28, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Further thinking: although hardly canonical, Jack Whyte suggests the personal relationship between Richard I "the Lionheart" of England| and Phillip II "Augustus" of France may have influenced the latter in seeking revenge both for his own treatment and for the treatment of his sister Alys. User:Jel - unsigned 12:28, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] GA Re-Review and In-line citations

Members of the Wikipedia:WikiProject Good articles are in the process of doing a re-review of current Good Article listings to ensure compliance with the standards of the Good Article Criteria. (Discussion of the changes and re-review can be found here). A significant change to the GA criteria is the mandatory use of some sort of in-line citation (In accordance to WP:CITE) to be used in order for an article to pass the verification and reference criteria. Currently this article does not include in-line citations. It is recommended that the article's editors take a look at the inclusion of in-line citations as well as how the article stacks up against the rest of the Good Article criteria. GA reviewers will give you at least a week's time from the date of this notice to work on the in-line citations before doing a full re-review and deciding if the article still merits being considered a Good Article or would need to be de-listed. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact us on the Good Article project talk page or you may contact me personally. On behalf of the Good Articles Project, I want to thank you for all the time and effort that you have put into working on this article and improving the overall quality of the Wikipedia project. Agne 20:55, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Reasons for GA Delisting

This article's GA status has been revoked because it fails criterion 2. b. of 'What is a Good Article?', which states;

(b) the citation of its sources using inline citations is required (this criterion is disputed by editors on Physics and Mathematics pages who have proposed a subject-specific guideline on citation, as well as some other editors — see talk page).

LuciferMorgan 01:00, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] GA review

I've had a long-standing interest in the Cathars, so I opted to do this GA review.

It seems that the main reason for this article's recent GA de-listing was that inline citations were being demanded, and that editors didn't react quickly enough to convert the older style of referencing when asked. It would be true to say that inline citations aren't an absolute requirement for a GA, but they are becoming a strong recommendation for anything other than the shortest of articles. I see that a lot of work has been done since then to address that issue, for which the editors are to be congratulated.

I haven't yet looked thorugh the article in great detail, but I do have a few style issues I'd like to see addressed.

  • Inline citations should appear after the punctuation, without spaces. So.[1] not [1].
  • For the layout of the References section I would suggest having a Notes subsection first, followed by the books to which they refer in a separate Bibliography subsection, with a separate Additional reading section for anyone looking for further sources. I've tried to format the References section to give you an idea of what I'm talking about.
  • It's difficult to tie up the citation to the source: I have no idea what "PL §XIII" is referring to for instance. I would suggest that you adopt the more normal style of, for instance Sibly (1998), pp.447-484
  • Citation #48 is broken.

I expect that all of those things can be fairly easily fixed though, so on to the review proper:

  • Some of the phrasing seems a little strange to me:
  • " ... roll back Catharism ..."
  • "... led to France's acquiring of lands ..."
  • "They invested the city ..."

Once again though, I'm sure that we can work together on the prose.

The thing that I find most noticably missing from this article is some idea of what the Cathar heresy actually was, and why the Catholics were so opposed to them. I'm not looking for a history of the Cathars, just a brief bit of background.

Those are just my initial thoughts; as I look at the article in more detail I may well have more comments to make. But I don't see anything that can't be fixed fairly quickly given a committed editor willing to take an active part in this review. So I'm putting this article on hold for seven days. --Malleus Fatuarum 01:16, 16 October 2007 (UTC)


  • Still on the subject of references, it's very noticeable that while the Initial success 1209 to 1215 subsection is rather densely referenced, there are no further refences given from that point onwards in the article.
  • "In 1242, Raymond of Toulouse attempted to revolt in coincidence with an English invasion ..." Was this English invasion in support of the Cathars, or just an opportunistic exercise on the part of the English?
  • Note 14 says: "It should be remembered that the weakness of King John was already well on the way to destroying the Angevin Empire before the Battle of Bouvines ended it completely." Why should it be remembered? What has it to do with the Albigensian Crusade? --Malleus Fatuarum 12:20, 18 October 2007 (UTC)


As none of the issues identified in this review have been addressed within the seven days allowed, this article has failed its GA nomination. --Malleus Fatuarum 17:21, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

I've got a real life which includes other priorities, GA: my last correspondance with LuciferMorgan went unsanwered, so I wasn't expecting such a rapid deadline, and as I explained to him, I was really after feedback on a tyro's first efforts at a big job, for which thanks - I've been busy elsewhere. Anyway, the project continues later this week, please don't kill me yet. The article was orphaned, I checked before starting, and as I'm also doing a Masters in Mediaeval theology in my spare time, which verges on this subject (Konrad von Urach, 2nd Legate 1220-1223), I'm speaking up for its virtue. The editing's got as far as I've had time for. I'll pursue it further this next week.
For indication, the intention is just to reference the text at this point, which is pretty kosher - imho, the references are adequate in themselves, not being so innumerable as to offer too much searching. Still, standards are standards. The reason notes aren't always after the punctuation is sometimes that they refer to precise points in the clause, which often covers huge amounts of history - punctuation is the servant of semantics, and not its master, and footnotes elucidate the semantics, which in this case cover huge amounts of history in just a few words. Please don't adjust unless you have the original texts alongside you.
As far as the content of the King John note's concerned, and the 1242 incursion, the Frech-appointed Pope Innocent III was giving away Plantagenet lands. Louis VII of France's marriage with Eleanor of Acquitaine was dissolved in 1152, and she brought the Acquitaine and Poitou into her next marriage with Henry II of England, surrounding France with the existing Plantagenet holdings in Flanders and their alliance with Burgundy/Holy Roman Empire. Eleanor had already fallen out with Bernard of Clairvaux in a big way, so after Richard's ransom bankrupted the Angevin Empire, John had little scope to resist the French, other than tagging along on Catalan incursions. See Weir, almost the entire book, Vaux de Cernay also lists no less than 15 intrusions on John's part. The sore dragged on for the next 300 years, until Mary I lost Calais, and is even now a cause for gentle provocation of the French in European diplomacy, which I work in. There may be a Church motivation of Bernard's personal revenge in this, which needs looking at as a new study in the area.Jel 18:17, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

I have no intention of "adjusting" anything, with or without the texts beside me. I would strongly recommend though that you sort out the referencing in this article, and make certain that you have the time to participate before you nominate it for another GA review. We're all busy people, and none of us like having our time wasted. --Malleus Fatuarum 18:44, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Pearls before swine

A disciplinary question is being refered to Arbitration, as I am complaining against the procedures of the GA group, I see you have a similar problem over Berlin. In the mean time, I am reverting my contributions and some other poor soul can tackle it if they like. "Congratulations to the editors" indeed! BS. Jel 13:24, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
PS As advice to all other editors, don't help these bullies. It's a total waste of time, and you've got better things to do with your life. LuciferMorgan, who relegated this article, seems to have washed his hands of them, and there's a similar complaint on the GA discussion panel from another Editor of a significant article who was treated as abominably. This isn't a posting war, it's much worse than that, such complete disrespect from the Admin towards the people who contribute to their reputation is nothing less than thoroughly hypocritical. Don't bother contacting me, you're now on my personal blacklist.Jel 15:30, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
Very sad that someone has dropped out of editing because of this experience. The referencing does still need improving, though. I was surprised to see so many direct references to the original sources when the article should be a summary of the best secondary texts. Some good recent secondary texts are listed and they should be enough to write a short article like this one. Itsmejudith (talk) 10:01, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
We now have the ridiculous situation that it remains a Bad Article according to this page, that the GA Bad Article flyer on the main page has been removed, that I've had no reply to my appeal, but that this is now a key text in the 2007 Wikipedia for Schools curriculum, please maintain standards! Please also look up IAR as an underlying principle which GA ignore - they should restrict themselves to mailing the contributors asking for them to add their sources. Jel (peeing himself laughing at the mess GA have made and are incapable of resolving - serves them ruddy well right).12:44, 26 January 2008 (UTC)
Despite the above, it is now four more months later and still no hearing has been given to my complaint about GA abuse. If anyone's bothered, I'd suggest taking Admin to task about this bureaucratic nonsense: in the meantime, Military History project ranks it as "Quotation criteria met", and they're the boys with the background to say, rather than GA who lack the detailed knowledge, so unless anyone feels differently, I'd suggest we consign the GA poster to the rubbish bin where it belongs. Jel - Ignore All Rules (but respect your subject).—Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.65.200.68 (talk • contribs) 11:53, 25 May 2008

[edit] The Famous Quote

I've changed the translation of "Caedite eos ..." to reflect the use of enim as surely, of course or naturally rather than for, which doesn't quite capture the meaning. Also, the use of novit would mean discerns, learns or discovers (id est upon their deaths) rather than knows. There is more of an arrogant edge in the Latin that the commonly translated version (but there is disagreement, of course, because he was quoted some 30 years later). Another variant would be "Just kill them! Surely God discovers which ones are his." Mephistopheles 14:05, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Because we have Arnold Amaury's own statement supported by a witness statement, the above infringes NPOV. You MUST respect the statements made by the party you are accusing of a major crime, even after eight hundred years, unless you have original evidence that they are mistaken by accident or are lying. If it were not for the importance of the statement in historical tradition and as an unfortunate precedent in setting a new low in the field of ethnic cleansing, I would be arguing that this should be excluded completely as hearsay evidence.

Heisterbach is presenting hearsay evidence, which is also insubordinate, given that Amaury was the Head of Heisterbach's Order, and that Heisterbach would certainly have sworn an oath of obedience to his Rule.

Aumery's own report to the Pope suggests he was in a leadership conference discussing the very question when someone burst in, reporting the sergeants and scum had taken the gates and were running amok in the city. Vaux de Cernay, although partisan, would have been present as a clerk in the meeting, and states that the attack happened "without the knowledge of the chiefs of the army and quite without consulting them"(VC §90). As we have here two original statements versus one hearsay statement, NPOV requires at the very least the inclusion of both sides, which would unduly distort the article unless presented either as a footnote or relegated to a separate page - in which case, I would suggest that links be added to Propaganda!

Jel 19:11, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Extreme violence

It is historically significant for a number of reasons: the violence was extreme--even by medieval standards

Pardon my saying so, but isn't that statement fairly subjective? --Falkan 04:13, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Only if you consider ethnic cleansing isn't a crime against humanity. Béziers alone accounted for up to twenty thousand deaths, and the accumulated body-count for all the massacres over the following hundred and fifty years is of the order of a hundred thousand, representing a significant proportion of the local population. The extermination of a religion by slaughtering its adherents is now considered a mass accumulation of individual offences against the right to freedom of belief, which was first significantly espoused in this area, and which this was in part an attempt to suppress. The other covert motives were a distinctly separate struggle for religious suzerainity, and a land-grab of King John's Angevin empire (see the dispute between de Montfort and Amaury in 1212 over the title of Count of Toulouse, still a couple of years before Bouvines, and John's ineffectual defence of these lands recorded in Vaux de Cernay).

We may be guilty of rewriting history in the light of modern mores, but as we are preserving and working from the original texts within an NPOV framework, rather than making commentaries on commentaries, we are entitled to state our current judgement. If in the course of time other records are discovered which prove us wrong, then we stand ready to be corrected, but until then, such is our civilisation.

Jel 19:58, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Saying that the violence was extreme by medieval standards denotes a lack of knowledge of what the standards of medieval times were. I would suggest that judgements lacking any real historical basis be left out of the article (the violence WAS extreme, but certainly not by the standards of the time, and pointing out that that a holy war was violent seems rather obvious), and as such, I've removed the statement.--Falkan (talk) 22:14, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

I agree. I would also like to point out that another of the problems with this article is precisely the issue inadvertently raised by Jel above, when (s)he says "we are ... working from the original texts ". The original texts require interpretation and translation, which is original research. This article ought to be written using and citing secondary sources, not original texts. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 22:38, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Disambiguation: Termes

In the fourth paragraph of the section Albigensian Crusade#Initial success 1209 to 1215 the word Termes appears; this is an ambiguous term and it would be useful if a knowledgeable person could disambiguate this term. (permalink of article at time comment posted). --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 13:15, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

www.viamichelin.fr lists 5 places named Termes, of which only one, in the Aude, is anywhere in the territory in question, or at least close enough to Carcassone for them to have wheeled thence the siege engines referred to in the reference. Sorry, I don't have time to retype the whole of Vaux de Cernay, go find it and do it yourself if you need.

[edit] Estimated deaths

The source used for estimated deaths is rather questionable (it cites numbers from several books with figures ranging from the 200,000 appearing in the article to 1 million). After having read up on the figure used - 200,000, as stated by Rummel (who is not himself a historian, and has been noted before for being extremely inaccurate in estimating death tolls) - I think that, absent any concrete figures, the death toll should either be the range of various estimations, or excluded entirely from the article. Arbitrarily picking one of the estimations (one made by a non-historian that is far, far out of range with other estimations) seems rather inaccurate.--Falkan (talk) 22:30, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

1. This is discussed under Kill Them All. The problem actally was that the government didn't give a monkey's about population at the time, serfs were expendable sub-humans, particularly the enemy's, and particularly to the troops.
2. The correct procedure is to cite the original sources, review the secondary sources, and argue a case, qualifying it as appropiate in the interests on an NPOV. Pray do so, and supply a fuller, annotated argument in support of your thesis here. If your sources are not reliably available on line, quote them here, with attributions. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.64.13.197 (talk) 12:36, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Catalan political link

I am surprised the Catalan political link has not been developed. I am not an expert but have read somewhat on the ties between Occitania (Languedoc), which was not then part of France, and Catalonia, and how the Cathar Crusade was taken advantage of by the French crown to effectively invade lands that had until then been vassals of the Catalan counts, particularly at that time of the House of Barcelona (Peter II of Aragon and James I of Aragon), which was then very expansive. The link between Occitania's and Catalonia's rulers was essentially of the blood, and their societies had close cultural, economic and political ties. Certain historians state that the Cathar Crusade was originally instigated by the King of France in order to prevent an eventual union of the burgeoning Count of Barcelona and his Catalan vassals with Occitania's rulers, which would have represented an economic, social and political superpower, in clear opposition to French and Papal interests.

I have never contributed to such a developed article and to such an extent before and am unsure as to where and how to add the info. I am aware that such an addition should be made with references and I shall do so. However, I would appreciate some indication on how to go about this inclusion. --YuriBCN 19:52, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

I think such an addition would be useful and you just have one consideration to bear in mind: finding a good secondary source that deals with these relationships in enough detail. Or more than one source. BTW, you need to sign your posts with four tildes: ~~~. Thanks for your efforts. Itsmejudith (talk) 10:51, 1 April 2008 (UTC)