The Cistercians and the Count of Toulouse
To this area , the South of France , Pope Innocent III sent his legates , Peter of Castelnau and Brother Ralph , Cistercian monks , in 1203 in the hopes of fighting “ against the plague of faithlessness ” that so far had been resistant to earlier legate missions . 61 The Count of Toulouse , Raymond VI , was a strong force to be reckoned with as he held great wealth through his many properties of land , holding a large fiefdom with ties to England , Aragon and Germany . He was sympathetic to the Albigensians having been raised in their traditions from childhood to adulthood . 62
The city of Toulouse being a central city “ the principal source of the poison of heresy which had infested the people and deflected them from the knowledge of Christ and His pure splendor and divine glory .” 63
Raymond VI renounced the Catholic Church and sought to follow the heretical teachings of the Albigensians as demonstrated by his disrespect for the sacrament of matrimony , whenever his
61 Peter of les Vaux-de-Cernay , The History of the Albigensian Crusade , trans . W . A . and M . D . Silby , ( NY : Boydell Brewer , LTD ., 1998 ), 7 . 62 Thomas Madden , The Concise History of the Crusades , 3 rd ed ., ( NY : Rowman & Littelfield , 2014 ), 121 . 63 Michael Costen , The Cathars and the Albigensian Crusade , ( NY : Manchester University Press , 1997 ), 72 .