7 - The Good, the Bad, and the Beautiful: Violence in the Canso de la Crozada

Summary

The scene of violence described in the Canso de la Crozada is a terrible one. Ramon Roger, the Count of Foix, has attacked a group of Germans and Frisians, massacring them and mutilating those he did not kill by gouging out their eyes and cutting off their hands. Confronting the count at the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215, Folquet de Marseille, the Bishop of Toulouse, protests,

n'a tans mortz e trencatz e brizatz

e partitz que lo cams de Montjoy ne remas si crostitz.

…Laforas a la porta es tals lo dols e·l critz

dels orbs e dels nafratz e d'aicels meg partitz, que negus no pot ir si no lo mena guitz.

(145.18–23)

[He has killed, slashed, broken, and mutilated so many that the field of Montgey remains covered with them.… Out there at the gateway rise the moans and cries of the blind, the wounded, men who have lost their limbs or cannot walk unless a guide leads them.]

Through Folquet's words, we have the impression of gaining access to a historical reality. Other sources from this time confirm that Ramon Roger did, in fact, ambush these men as they were traveling between Revel and Cuq-Toulza in April of 1211.