tion, and , for a time at least, he had little to fear. It is true that Louis IX., a child of thirteen, was crowned without delay at Reims, and the regency was confided to his mother, Blanche of Castile, but the great barons were restive, and the conspiracy, hatched before the walls of Avignon, was yet in existence. Britanny, Champagne, and La Marche ostentatiously kept away from the coronation, delayed offering their homage, and intrigued with England. Early in 1227, however, they quarrelled, when a show of force and favorable terms brought them in one by one ; short truces were made with Henry III. and the Viscount of Thouars, and a temporary respite was obtained. Gregory IX., who mounted the papal throne March 19, 1227, took the regent and the boy-king under the papal protection, on the ground of their being engaged in war against heresy ; but the succors which they sent from time to time to de Beaujeu were probably only enough to give color to a continuance of the ecclesiastical tithe, which the four great provinces of Reims, Rouen, Sens, and Tours resisted till the legate authorized the regent to seize church property and compel the payment. Raymond thus was enabled to continue the struggle with varying fortune. The Council of Narbonne, held during Lent, 1227, in excommunicating those who had proved faithless to the oaths given to Louis shows that the people had returned to their ancient allegiance where they safely could ; and in commanding a strict perquisition of heretics by the bishops and their punishment by the secular authorities, it indicates that even in territories held by the French the duties of persecution were slackly performed.[1]
The war dragged on through 1227 with varying result. De Beaujeu, assisted by Pierre Amiel of Narbonne and Foulques of Toulouse, captured, after a desperate siege, the castle of Becede, when the garrison was slaughtered and the heretic deacon Geraud de Motte and his comrades were burned, the castellan, Pagan de
- ↑ Chron. Turonens. ann. 1226, 1227.— Martene Ampliss. Collect. I. 1210-13.—
Potthast Regesta, 7897, 7920.— Vaissette, III. Pr. 323-5.— Guill el. Nangiac. ann. 1227.— Guillel. de Pod. Laurent, c. 38.— Matt. Paris ann. 1228.— Martene Thesaur. I. 940.— Concil. Narbonnens. ann. 1227 can. 13-17 —Vaissette, Ed. Privat, VIII. 265.
Letters of the Archbishop of Sens and Bishop of Chartres, in 1227, promising to pay to the king a subsidy for the crusade against the Albigenses are preserved in the Archives Nationales de France, J. 428, No. 8.
