LANGUEDOC

languedoc, one of the old provinces of france, the name of which dates from the end of the 13th century. in 1290 it was used to refer to the country in whose tongue (_langue_) the word for "yes" was _oc_, as opposed to the centre and north of france, the _langue d'oil_ (the _oui_ of to-day). territorially languedoc varied considerably in extent, but in general from 1360 until the french revolution it included the territory of the following departments of modern france: part of tarn et garonne, tarn, most of haute-garonne, ariege, aude, pyrenees-orientales, herault, gard, lozere, part of ardeche and haute-loire. the country had no natural geographical unity. stretching over the cevennes into the valleys of the upper loire on the north and into that of the upper garonne on the west, it reached the pyrenees on the south and the rolling hills along the rhone on the east. its unity was entirely a political creation, but none the less real, as it was the great state of the midi, the representative of its culture and, to some degree, the defence of its peculiar civilization. its climate, especially in herault (montpellier), is especially delightful in spring and early summer, and the scenery still holds enough ruined remains of roman and feudal times to recall the romance and the tragedy of its history. although the name is of comparatively late medieval origin, the history of languedoc, which had little in common with that of northern france, begins with the roman occupation. toulouse was an important place as early as 119 b.c.; the next year narbonne, the seaport, became a roman colony. by the time of julius caesar the country was sufficiently romanized to furnish him with men and money, and though at first involved in the civil wars which followed, it prospered under roman rule as perhaps no other part of the empire did. while it corresponded exactly to no administrative division of the roman empire, it was approximately the territory included in _gallia narbonensis_, one of the seventeen provinces into which the empire was divided at the death of augustus. it was rich and flourishing, crowded with great and densely populated towns, nimes, narbonne, beziers, toulouse; with schools of rhetoric and poetry still vigorous in the 5th century; theatres, amphitheatres and splendid temples. in the 5th century this high culture was an open prize for the barbarians; and after the passing of the vandals, suebi and visigoths into spain, the visigoths returned under wallia, who made his capital at toulouse in 419. this was the foundation of the visigothic kingdom which clovis dismembered in 507, leaving the visigoths only septimania--the country of seven cities, narbonne, carcassonne, elne, beziers, maguelonne, lodeve and agde--that is, very nearly the area occupied later by the province of languedoc. at the council of narbonne in 589 five races are mentioned as living in the province, visigoths, romans, jews--of whom there were a great many--syrians and greeks. the repulse of the arabs by charles martel in 732 opened up the country for the frankish conquest, which was completed by 768. under the carolingians septimania became part of the kingdom of aquitaine, but became a separate duchy in 817. until the opening of the 13th century there is no unity in the history of languedoc, the great houses of toulouse and carcassonne and the swarm of warlike counts and barons practically ignoring the distant king of france, and maintaining a chronic state of civil war. the feudal regime did not become at all universal in the district, as it tended to become in the north of france. allodial tenures survived in sufficient numbers to constitute a considerable class of non-vassal subjects of the king, with whose authority they were little troubled. by the end of the 11th century the house of the counts of toulouse began to play the predominant role; but their court had been famous almost a century before for its love of art and literature and its extravagance in dress and fashions, all of which denoted its wealth. constance, wife of king robert ii. and daughter of the count of toulouse, gave great offence to the monks by her following of gallant gentlemen. they owed their tastes, not only to their roman blood, and the survival of their old love for rhetoric and poetry, but also to their intercourse with the mahommedans, their neighbours and enemies, and their friends when they were not fighting. under raymond of saint gilles, at the end of the 11th century, the county of toulouse began its great career, but raymond's ambition to become an oriental prince, which led him--and the hundred thousand men who, according to the chroniclers, followed him--away on the first crusade, left a troubled heritage to his sons bertrand and alphonse jourdain. the latter successfully beat off william ix., duke of aquitaine, and won from the count of barcelona that part of provence between the drome and the durance. the reign of alphonse lasted from 1109 to 1148. by the opening of the 13th century the sovereignty of the counts of toulouse was recognized through about half of provence, and they held the rich cities of the most cultured and wealthiest portion of france, cities which had a high degree of local independence. their local governments, with their consuls at the head, show, at least in name, the influence of roman ideas. it is still an open question how much of their autonomy had remained untouched by the barbarian invasions from the roman period. the citizens of these free cities were in continual intercourse with saracens of palestine and moors of spain; they had never entirely abandoned pagan customs; their poetry--the poetry of the troubadours--taught them the joys of life rather than the fear of death, the licence of their chivalry with its courts of love led to the other extreme of asceticism in such as were of religious temperament; all things combined to make languedoc the proper soil for heresy. the church never had the hold upon the country that it had in the north, the people of the midi were always lukewarm in the faith; there was no noteworthy ecclesiastical literature in languedoc from the end of the carolingian period until after the albigensian crusade, no theological centre like paris, bec or laon. yet languedoc furnished the most heroic martyrs for the ascetic manichaean creed. the era of heresy began with the preaching of peter de brueys and his follower, henry of lausanne, who emptied the churches and taught contempt for the clergy. saint bernard himself was able to make but temporary headway against this rebellion from a sacramental and institutionalized christianity. in the first decade of the 13th century came the inevitable conflict. the whole county of toulouse, with its fiefs of narbonne, beziers, foix, montpellier and quercy, was in open and scornful secession from the catholic church, and the suppression of this manichaean or cathar religion was the end of the brilliant culture of languedoc. 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