Innocent III et la violence dans le Midi. Entre justice et miséricorde

Abstract

Innocent III and violence in the south of France. Between justice and mercy. The attitude of Innocent III towards violence in the south of France is examined, starting with his letters and sermons, which show the principal scriptural models to which is referred his management of events occurring in a distant periphery and controlled with difficulty through the legates, with a return to the beginnings, seeking to limit anachronistic temptations. For him, analysis is theological, and his discourse knows only violence, which, multiform in nature, strikes the Church. All the rest is riposte, justified by the establishment of Church law of which he has charge. Thus he perceives private wars as obstacles to holy war against the Saracens, and he often reacts blow by blow to events transmitted to him by the legates. Without ever forgetting the Holy Land, he develops his action in the frame of his own comprehension as lieutenant of Christ the Judge, and as faithful steward preparing the return of the Master. As regards his unmanageable interlocutors, he has recourse repeatedly to the parables of the sterile tree and of the Samaritan in order to illustrate his policy, between justice and mercy, notably towards Raymond VI of Toulouse.