Note 157 — Chapter IX · CHRISTENDOM IN THE MIDDLE AGES

The first crusade was followed by others, in which Simon de Montfort reached the maximum of massacre, varying his procedure by tearing out eyes and cutting off noses when he was not hanging victims by dozens or burning them by scores or putting them to the sword by hundreds157 (all being done “with the utmost joy”)158; though the “White Company” organized by the Bishop of Toulouse159 maintained a close rivalry. The Church’s great difficulty was that as soon as an army had bought its plenary indulgence for all possible sin by forty days’ service, it disbanded. Nevertheless, “the greater part of the population of the countries where heresy had prevailed was exterminated.”160 Organized Christianity had contrived to murder the civilization of Provence and Languedoc161 while the fanatics of Islam in their comparatively bloodless manner were doing as much for that of Moorish Spain. Heresy indeed was not rooted out: throughout the whole of the thirteenth century the Inquisition met with resistance in Languedoc162; but the preponderance of numbers which alone could sustain freethinking had been destroyed, and in course of time it was eliminated by the sleepless engines of the Church.