These disputes were connected with the crusade of 1202, which like that of 1095, and those of 1147 and 1189, placed in the hands of the pope the clue of all the movements of Europe. Each of these expeditions occasioned quarrels between the crusaders and the Greeks, and this misunderstanding appeared to Innocent an open for re-conquering the Eastern Church, escaped now two centuries from the domination of the court of Rome. The Greek empire, worn out by war and by faction, became the prey of the crusaders, who, being unable to retain Jerusalem, made themselves masters of Constantinople. Baldwin, Count of Flanders, was nominated Emperor of the East; after him four other Frenchmen filled successively the same throne, while, having taken refuge in Nice, the Greek emperors reigned only over some provinces. The palaces and temples of Byzantium were plundered, and the booty, collected by the French lords was estimated at a quantity of silver of two hundred thousand pounds weight. They found it convenient to indemnify themselves in Greece for the losses sustained in Palestine; the vow which they had made, to combat only infidels, no longer repressed their covetousness; the re-establishment of holy places was but a pretext for pillaging the rich ones; and already the affectation of sentiments of religion was relinquished.:
“They “cast, says Fleury, the relics into unclean places, “they scattered on the ground the body and blood “of our Lord; they employed the sacred vases “for profane uses, and an insolent woman danced in “the sanctuary and seated herself in the chair of the “priest.”
Innocent, who was not ignorant of these profanations and complained of them, did not approve the less of the conquest:²²⁷
“God, said he, willing to “console the church by the re−union of the schisma− “tics, has caused the empire of the haughty, supersti− “tious and disobedient Greeks to pass over to the “humble, catholic, and submissive Latins.”
²²⁷ Hist, eccles. 1. 76. n. 2.; Innoc. III, Epist 1. 8. ep. 69.
Another benefit derived from the crusades was, the application of their names to many other leagues formed or fomented by the Roman Church. Innocent III. is the inventor of this artifice, which evinces an abundant acquaintance with the means of leading minds astray by the illusion of words: he applied to the service of his serious political designs, the enormous power of a word which, for the period of one hundred and ten years, had the effect of exciting through Europe the most blind and restless enthusiasm. He preached therefore a crusade against England when he had determined on dethroning John; a crusade against the Hungarians when he affected to become the arbiter of their intestine dissentions; a crusade against a king of Norway, whom also he wished to depose; but above all, a crusade against the Albigenses, a sect extended through the entire south of France. Raymond VI. Count of Tholouse, because he protected the Albigenses his subjects, was excommunicated as the abettor of heresy; and, one of the legates, who excited these troubles, having received a mortal wound, the states of the count, accused without any proof of the assassination, were declared vacant, and the prize of the first crusader who possessed himself of them. In vain Raymond humbled himself to degradation: in vain he had-the more culpable weakness to take up the cross himself against his own subjects; Simon de Montford obtained these wretched provinces, purchased by torrents of blood, with which he had inundated them. Raymond took refuge with his brother-in-law, Peter II. king of Arragon, who, after useless intercession with Innocent, took arms against Simon de Montford, and perished at the battle of Muret, in 1213. Two years afterwards the pope in the midst of a Lateran Council, definitely deposed Raymond, granting him a moderate pension, and bestowed his states on Simon, whom they dared to name Maccabeus, and who died in 1218 at the siege of Thou-louse. We do not mean to exculpate the Albigenses altogether, sometimes also denominated Vaudois, because there are numbers residing in the valleys of Piedmont, and often Good-men, from the regularity of their manners; but, to exterminate thousands of worthy men, because they were deceived, and to dethrone him who ruled them, because he did not persecute them speedily enough, such excessive severity unveils the character and displays the power of Innocent III.²²⁸