title: Crisis on Infinite Earths

text: The idea for "Crisis on Infinite Earths" was first noted in the December 1981 issue of "The Comics Journal", which mentioned a twelve-part maxiseries scheduled for 1982. The series was announced in Giordano's "Meanwhile..." column DC ran in its titles in June 1984. Giordano warned readers that "odd occurrences" would begin to happen throughout DC's comics. He also clarified it would commemorate DC's fiftieth anniversary and would provide the company "wonderful stepping-stones" for new characters and comics. The series was marketed with the tagline "Worlds will live, worlds will die and nothing will ever be the same".


title: Crisis on Infinite Earths

text: The series began in January 1985 and lasted for twelve issues, ending in December 1985 (issues cover dated April 1985 through March 1986). The close spacing of "Crisis on Infinite Earths" and Marvel's similar crossover "Secret Wars" caused some fans to create conspiracy theories about idea theft. According to writer Steve Gerber, the series "got virtually no promotion ... How many handouts did you see? How many posters did you see in people's windows? How much information was really distributed to the press and how much was gotten just by individual reporters going to Marv Wolfman and ["Crisis" artist] George Pérez?"


title: Crisis on Infinite Earths

text: Elements to set up "Crisis on Infinite Earths" were put in DC's comics years before the crossover took place; an example of this was the Monitor's appearance in "The New Teen Titans". In a January 3, 1983 memo, Giordano, Wolfman, and Len Wein instructed editors and writers to use the Monitor twice in the coming year but not to show him: "Because this series involves the entire DC Universe we do ask that each Editor and writer cooperate with the project by using a character called The Monitor in their books twice during the next year". This served to set up the series. When Wolfman and Giordano reiterated this in a 1984 meeting, some editors were not pleased; one was so miffed he did not speak for the rest of the meeting.


title: Crisis on Infinite Earths

text: Tie-ins for "Crisis on Infinite Earths" were published in DC's ongoing series. Unlike the 1991 Marvel crossover storyline "The Infinity Gauntlet", where Marvel only published tie-ins in titles that needed a boost in sales, the vast majority of DC's comics featured events that directly tied to the crossover. The following comic book issues were labeled as part of the crossover; their covers contained a banner that read "Special "Crisis" Cross-Over", along with the logo for DC's fiftieth anniversary.


title: Crisis on Infinite Earths

text: The conflicting stories of the DCU are explained as a Multiverse, containing many parallel universes and alternate versions of the characters, with the primary DC continuity referred to as Earth-One. They were created after renegade scientist Krona built a machine and used it to look back into the beginning of time. A cosmic being from the beginning known as the Monitor catalogues these realities, but he has an evil counterpart, the Anti-Monitor, who comes from an antimatter universe.


title: Crisis on Infinite Earths

text: After Pariah causes an accident with antimatter in his universe, the Anti-Monitor is released and begins destroying many of the realities with a wave of antimatter, planning on becoming sole ruler of all realities. To combat this, the Monitor recruits heroes and villains from across time and space to set up five towers, to help merge the multiverse back into one to make it stronger. He is murdered by his protégée, Harbinger, who is possessed by one of the Anti-Monitor's demons. However, he knew this would happen and his death releases enough energy to project two of the last five parallel Earths into a protective limbo. The Anti-Monitor recruits Psycho-Pirate to his cause, infusing him with part of his power to manipulate the heroes of Earth-4, Earth-S and Earth-X against the rest; this fails when all five Earths enter the limbo universe. Harbinger then recruits heroes from the remaining Earths to lead an assault on the Anti-Monitor in the antimatter universe, using the powers of Alexander Luthor Jr., the last survivor of Earth-Three, to open a portal between the limbo and antimatter universes. Pariah tracks down the Anti-Monitor at his fortress, and the heroes destroy a converter, powered by stellar energy, used to destroy the last five Earths; the injured Anti-Monitor retreats and Supergirl dies from his attacks after a distraction from Doctor Light.


title: Crisis on Infinite Earths

text: During a lull in the war, the villains unite under Brainiac, who kills Earth-Two's Alexei Luthor while recruiting the Earth-One Lex Luthor to conquer the remaining Earths. The Anti-Monitor meanwhile creates a new body for himself and tries to use an antimatter cannon to penetrate the limbo universe and destroy the five partially merged Earths. The Flash (Barry Allen), who's been the Anti-Monitor's prisoner for most of the story, dies stopping this attempt. A furious Anti-Monitor absorbs the energy of millions of worlds and vows to travel back through time to prevent the creation of the multiverse. The Spectre unites the heroes and villains by warning them about the Anti-Monitor's plan; the heroes travel back in time to stop the Anti-Monitor, while the villains travel back in time to the ancient planet Oa to prevent Krona from creating the technology necessary for the Anti-Monitor's plan to succeed. The villains fail, and Krona continues his experiment. The Anti-Monitor waits for Alex Luthor to reopen the portal between the positive and antimatter universes, capturing the heroes, but a magically empowered Spectre creates an energy overload which shatters space and time. The five Earths merge into a single shared universe, and the superheroes return to the present; only those present at the dawn of time remember the original realities.


title: Crisis on Infinite Earths

text: A cosmically empowered Anti-Monitor attacks again, transporting the new Earth to the antimatter universe and summoning a horde of shadow demons. He falls in a carefully planned counterattack, culminating in a battle with Superboy of Earth-Prime, Kal-L (the Earth-Two Superman), and Alexander Luthor Jr., with help from New Gods adversary Darkseid. In this final battle the Anti-Monitor, reduced to a flaming head, crashes into a star and is killed by Kal-L. Before the star explodes, Alex sends Kal-L, Earth-Two Lois Lane, Earth-Prime Superboy and himself to a pocket "paradise" dimension. This leaves the heroes of the remaining Earth, none of whom remember the original past, to sort out the aftermath of this crisis. Only Psycho-Pirate, who is locked up in Arkham Asylum, remembers the multiverse.


title: Crisis on Infinite Earths

text: Despite relatively limited marketing and DC being unsure if the series would be successful, "Crisis on Infinite Earths" was a bestseller.


title: Crisis on Infinite Earths

text: IGNs Hilary Goldstein summarized the series as "a crucial turning point for DC Comics" and credited it with saving the company. Goldstein called Wolfman's idea to simplify the DCU bold and unprecedented, noting the story's exceptional size and saying the story was "unbelievable", if somewhat aged. He also praised Pérez's detailed artwork, saying no other artist could have possibly illustrated it as well as he did and gave the book a "must have" rating. Fellow "IGN" writer Jesse Schedeen named "Crisis on Infinite Earths" one of the best DC crossovers, agreeing it was unprecedented and dramatic.


title: Crisis on Infinite Earths

text: Marc Buxton of "Comic Book Resources" named "Crisis on Infinite Earths" the greatest comic book crossover ever, saying that no crossover has been bigger or as ambitious: "where some events seem hesitant to actually leave a mark on their respective universes, "Crisis" did it with aplomb". He praised the series for exploring the entire DCU and felt it was a fitting event for DC's fiftieth anniversary. "Nerdist News" noted that many of the series' central events—such as the deaths of Supergirl and Barry Allen—have become iconic moments in DC's history.


title: Crisis on Infinite Earths

text: Not all reviewers have been as positive. Chris Sims wrote the series was messy and built awkwardly, describing it as "a textbook definition of style over substance". Sims said it was far from the best work of Wolfman and Pérez; however, he still thought it was groundbreaking, saying, "It's the first time in comics history that EVERYTHING was in danger".


title: Crisis on Infinite Earths

text: A novelization of "Crisis on Infinite Earths" was written by Wolfman and published by iBooks in 2005, with cover art by Pérez and Alex Ross. The book follows the events of the original series; most of the story is presented from Barry Allen's point of view, while parts where he is not present are told from a third-person perspective. It also added some details, including internal monologue and updates to make the story more modern, such as characters having cell phones. In 2008, WizKids issued a toy pack centered around the Anti-Monitor as a part of its DC HeroClix toy line. The pack came with a large Anti-Monitor figure with LED-lit eyes, several smaller figures, and a map. An exclusive variant, based on the Sinestro Corps, was available at the San Diego Comic-Con and Gen Con Indy conventions that year.


title: Crisis on Infinite Earths

text: DC Collectibles (then called DC Direct) released three series of action figures between 2005 and 2006. Based on the George Pérez artwork, the figures had a base with the logo of the series and certain figures included an accessory. The first series included Earth 2 Robin, Harbinger, Monitor, Psycho-Pirate, and Supergirl. Later series included Anti Monitor, Earth 2 Superman, Flash, Battle Armor Lex Luthor, Brainiac, Earth 1 Batman, Doctor Light, Earth Prime Superboy, Earth 2 Huntress, and Weaponer of Qward.


title: Crisis on Infinite Earths

text: Though it was not the first large-scale comic book crossover, "Crisis on Infinite Earths" is generally credited with popularizing the idea. Comics historian Matthew K. Manning wrote that "Crisis on Infinite Earths" paved way for all future crossovers of similar scale, and Andrew J. Friedenthal said ""Crisis" showed the two major superhero comic book publishers (DC Comics and Marvel Comics) how they could utilize the continuity established by decades' worth of stories to weave together a cohesive, metatextual tapestry that both appealed to long-time readers and brought in massive amounts of money". The series' success inspired DC to begin a tradition of "summer crossovers"; some of these include "Invasion!" (1988–1989), "Armageddon 2001" (1991), "!" (1994), and "Identity Crisis" (2004), and some mention the events of "Crisis on Infinite Earths". The second part of one of DC's later crossovers, "Convergence" (2015), heavily references the series and sees DC's superheroes travel back to its era. The writers of "Convergence" all had fun writing stories set during "Crisis on Infinite Earths", calling the series an exciting time for DC.


title: Crisis on Infinite Earths

text: The series had an immediate effect on DC, dividing the company's history into two eras: "Pre-Crisis" and "Post-Crisis". Wolfman and Pérez teamed again to produce the "History of the DC Universe" limited series to summarize the DCU's new history. Many of DC's characters had their histories rebooted. Wonder Woman's comic was relaunched entirely by Pérez, Wein, and Greg Potter. Superman was first re-envisioned in the limited series "The Man of Steel" by John Byrne; his comic was retitled "The Adventures of Superman" to make way for a new "Superman" series. Batman was minimally affected by the reboot, and his comic was not relaunched. However, he was still given , courtesy of Frank Miller. In addition, Wally West replaced Barry Allen as the Flash, the Justice League's roster was changed, and characters DC acquired from other companies, such as Fawcett Publications and Charlton Comics, were integrated into the DCU. The practice of re-envisioning characters in the new DCU lasted well into 1989, with properties such as Green Lantern, Hawkman, Black Orchid, and the Suicide Squad all being rebooted. The revamp raised sales 22% in the first year, and DC beat Marvel in direct market sales for the first time in August and September 1987. "The Man of Steel" #1 was the bestselling comic book issue of 1986.


title: Crisis on Infinite Earths

text: "Crisis on Infinite Earths" has been referenced several times in the various television series that comprise the Arrowverse, starting with the first episode of "The Flash" which aired in October 2014. It features a newspaper from 2024 that reads "Flash Missing, Vanishes in Crisis". Grant Gustin, who plays the Flash on the show, has said he thinks the goal of the series is to reach "Crisis on Infinite Earths": "Obviously we'd have to go, I think 10 years to reach that, so there's a possibility for sure. It'll be fun to get there." The concept of a multiverse has been explored several times throughout the history of the franchise. Talking in 2014, Geoff Johns, when discussing the difference between the DC Extended Universe and the Marvel Cinematic Universe, said "We look at it as the multiverse. We have our TV universe and our film universe, but they all co-exist. For us, creatively, it's about allowing everyone to make the best possible product, to tell the best story, to do the best world. Everyone has a vision and you really want to let the visions shine through ... It's just a different approach." The storyline inspired the 2019 Arrowverse crossover, also titled "Crisis on Infinite Earths", with the original date seen in the pilot episode of "The Flash" having been moved up by five years as a side effect of time travel.


title: Crisis on Infinite Earths

text: "Crisis on Infinite Earths" is the first installment in what became known as the "Crisis" trilogy. The second part of the trilogy, the seven-part "Infinite Crisis", was written by Geoff Johns and illustrated by Phil Jimenez, Pérez, Ivan Reis, and Jerry Ordway. It was published from October 2005 to June 2006, with a number of tie-in issues. In the series, Kal-L, Alexander Luthor, and Superboy-Prime escape from the pocket dimension they were left in at the end of the original series; Luthor, having gone insane, attempts to recreate the multiverse using the Anti-Monitor's corpse. Whereas "Crisis on Infinite Earths" discarded the DC Multiverse, "Infinite Crisis" restored it.


title: Crisis on Infinite Earths

text: The conclusion to the trilogy, "Final Crisis", began in May 2008 and ended in January 2009. The series was written by Grant Morrison, with art by J. G. Jones, Carlos Pacheco, Marco Rudy, and Doug Mahnke. In "Final Crisis", Darkseid arrives on Earth and begins a conquest to overthrow reality, as part of a plan by Libra to conquer the Multiverse. The Justice League and Green Lantern Corps join forces in a desperate attempt to stop the upcoming onslaught.


title: Albigensian Crusade

text: The Albigensian Crusade or the Cathar Crusade (; 1209–1229) was a military and ideological campaign initiated by Pope Innocent III to eliminate Catharism in Languedoc, southern France. The Crusade was prosecuted primarily by the French crown and promptly took on a political aspect. It resulted in the significant reduction of practicing Cathars and a realignment of the County of Toulouse with the French crown. The distinct regional culture of Languedoc was also diminished.


title: Albigensian Crusade

text: The Cathars originated from an anti-materialist reform movement within the Bogomil churches of the Balkans calling for what they saw as a return to the Christian message of perfection, poverty and preaching, combined with a rejection of the physical to the point of starvation. The reforms were a reaction against the often perceived scandalous and dissolute lifestyles of the Catholic clergy in southern France. Their theology, neo-Gnostic in many ways, was basically dualist. Several of their practices, especially their belief in the inherent evil of the physical world, conflicted with the doctrines of the Incarnation of Christ and Catholic sacraments. This led to accusations of Gnosticism and attracted the ire of the Catholic establishment. They became known as the Albigensians because there were many adherents in the city of Albi and the surrounding area in the 12th and 13th centuries.


title: Albigensian Crusade

text: Between 1022 and 1163, the Cathars were condemned by eight local church councils, the last of which, held at Tours, declared that all Albigenses should be put into prison and have their property confiscated. The Third Lateran Council of 1179 repeated the condemnation. Innocent III's diplomatic attempts to roll back Catharism were met with little success. After the murder of his legate Pierre de Castelnau in 1208, and suspecting that Raymond VI, Count of Toulouse was responsible, Innocent III declared a crusade against the Cathars. He offered the lands of the Cathar heretics to any French nobleman willing to take up arms.


title: Albigensian Crusade

text: From 1209 to 1215, the Crusaders experienced great success, capturing Cathar lands and systematically crushing the movement. From 1215 to 1225, a series of revolts caused many of the lands to be regained by the Cathars. A renewed crusade resulted in the recapturing of the territory and effectively drove Catharism underground by 1244. The Albigensian Crusade had a role in the creation and institutionalization of both the Dominican Order and the Medieval Inquisition. The Dominicans promulgated the message of the Church and spread it by preaching the Church's teachings in towns and villages to stop the spread of alleged heresies, while the Inquisition investigated people who were accused of teaching heresies. Because of these efforts, all discernible traces of the Cathar movement were eradicated by the middle of the 14th century. Many historians consider the Albigensian Crusade against the Cathars an act of genocide.


title: Albigensian Crusade

text: The word "Cathar" is derived from the Greek word "katharos," meaning "clean" or "pure." Partially derived from earlier forms of Gnosticism, the theology of the Cathars was dualistic, a belief in two equal and comparable transcendental principles: God, the force of good, and the demiurge, the force of evil. Cathars held that the physical world was evil and created by this demiurge, which they called "Rex Mundi" (Latin, "King of the World"). "Rex Mundi" encompassed all that was corporeal, chaotic and powerful. The Cathar understanding of God was entirely disincarnate: they viewed God as a being or principle of pure spirit completely unsullied by the taint of matter. He was the God of love, order, and peace. Jesus was an angel with only a phantom body, and the accounts of him in the New Testament were to be understood allegorically. According to Cathar teaching, humans originally had no souls. They taught that the evil God, or Satan in another version, either gave new souls to people or used the souls of fallen angels. Alternatively, God took pity on men and gave them souls. Some Cathars believed in the transmigration of souls, in which the soul went from one body to another. Whether they did so or not, sexual intercourse under all circumstances was a grave sin, because it either brought a new soul into the evil world or perpetuated the cycle of souls being trapped in evil bodies. Civil authority had no claim on a Cathar, since this was the rule of the physical world. Accordingly, the Cathars refused to take oaths of allegiance or volunteer for military service. Cathar doctrine opposed killing animals and consuming meat.


title: Albigensian Crusade

text: Cathars rejected the Catholic priesthood, labelling its members, including the pope, unworthy and corrupted. Disagreeing on the Catholic concept of the unique role of the priesthood, they taught that anyone, not just the priest, could consecrate the Eucharistic host or hear a confession. There were, however, men selected amongst the Cathars to serve as bishops and deacons. Cathars rejected the dogma of the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist and Catholic teaching on the existence of Purgatory.


title: Albigensian Crusade

text: Cathar meetings were fairly simple. In a typical gathering, those present would make one or more recitations of the Lord's Prayer, make a general confession of sins, ask for forgiveness, and conclude with a common meal. There were however some special rituals. Catharism developed its own unique form of "sacrament" known as the "consolamentum", to replace the Catholic rite of baptism. Instead of receiving baptism through water, one received the "consolamentum" by the laying on of hands. Cathars regarded water as unclean because it had been corrupted by the earth, and therefore refused to use it in their ceremonies. Cathar bishops were selected from among the perfect. The act was typically received just before death, as Cathars believed that this increased one's chances for salvation by wiping away all previous sins. After receiving "consolamentum", the recipient became known as "perfectus". Having become "perfect," the soul, upon the death of the body, could escape the perpetual cycle of death and rebirth and achieve salvation. Prior to becoming a perfect, believing Cathars were encouraged but not always required to follow Cathar teaching on abstaining from sex and meat, and most chose not to do so. Once an individual received the "consolamentum", these rules became binding. Cathar perfects often went through a ritual fast called the "endura". After receiving the "consolamentum", a believer would sometimes take no food and rely only on cold water, a practice eventually resulting in death. The procedure was typically performed only by those close to death already. Some members of the Church claimed that if a Cathar upon receiving the "consolamentum" showed signs of recovery, the person would be smothered to death to ensure entry into Heaven. This did sometimes happen but there is little evidence that it was common practice. If a person receiving the "consolamentum" ever committed a grievous sin, the procedure had to be reapplied. If the bishop who dispensed it committed a serious sin, all of the people to whom he had given the procedure would need to undergo it again.


title: Albigensian Crusade

text: Cathar theology found its greatest success in the Languedoc, a name eventually given to a region later incorporated into the French nation. An alternative name for the region is "Occitania." In the Languedoc, political control and land ownership was divided among many local lords and heirs. Before the crusade, there was little fighting in the area. Regions to the north were divided into separate polities, but all of them generally recognized themselves as part of the Kingdom of France. They spoke different dialects, but these could broadly be classified under the French language. By contrast, Languedoc regions did not consider themselves French. Their language, Occitan, was not mutually intelligible with French. Instead, it was closer to Catalan. The County of Toulouse, the dominant political entity in the region, was a fief to the Angevin Empire, which controlled the Duchy of Aquitaine in the west. In many areas south and east of Toulouse, the Crown of Aragon and the Principality of Catalonia were both more influential than the French kingdom or even northern Languedoc.


title: Albigensian Crusade

text: By the early 13th century, the power of towns in the Languedoc was growing rapidly. The city of Toulouse was the main urban center in the region. By 1209, it had a population of 30,000–35,000 people, and enjoyed greater size, wealth, and influence than anywhere else in the Languedoc. It also enjoyed a high level of political autonomy. The Count of Toulouse resided in the Château Narbonnais inside of the city but had little real control over it. Small towns were built with defense in mind, generally with thick walls and on high mountains, often next to cliffs. Hence, a municipality was called a "castrum", meaning "fortified place." The urbanized character of the Languedoc distinguished it from the more rural north, and more readily allowed for the mixing of different groups of people. This fostered an atmosphere of comparative religious tolerance. Jews in the Languedoc experienced little discrimination, as was the case with the religious dissidents appearing in the area in the 12th century. Muslims were not bequeathed the same level of tolerance, but Islamic literature and scholarship were respected.


title: Albigensian Crusade

text: The Cathars were part of a widespread spiritual reform movement in medieval Europe which began about 653 when Constantine-Silvanus brought a copy of the Gospels to Armenia. In the following centuries a number of dissenting groups arose, gathered around charismatic preachers, who rejected the authority of the Catholic Church. These groups based their beliefs and practices on the Gospels rather than on Church dogma and sought a return to the early church and the faith of the Apostles. They claimed that their teaching was rooted in Scripture and part of Apostolic tradition. Sects such as the Paulicians in Armenia, Bogomils from Bulgaria and the Balkans, Arnoldists in northern Italy, Petrobrusians in southern France, Henricans in Switzerland and France, and Waldensians of the Piedmont area on the border of France and Italy, were violently persecuted and repressed. The Paulicians were ordered to be burned to death as heretics; the Bogomils were expelled from Serbia and later subjected to the Inquisition and the Bosnian Crusade; Peter of Bruys, leader of the Petrobrusians, was pushed into a bonfire by an angry mob in 1131.


title: Albigensian Crusade

text: A number of prominent 12th century preachers insisted on it being the responsibility of the individual to develop a relationship with God, independent of an established clergy. Henry of Lausanne criticized the priesthood and called for lay reform of the Church. He gained a large following. Henry's preaching focused on condemning clerical corruption and clerical hierarchy, and there is no evidence that he subscribed to Cathar teachings on dualism. He was arrested around 1146 and never heard from again. Arnold of Brescia, leader of the Arnoldists, was hanged in 1155 and his body burnt and thrown into the Tiber River, "for fear", one chronicler says, "lest the people might collect them and honour them as the ashes of a martyr". The Waldensians, followers of Peter Waldo, experienced burnings and massacres.


title: Albigensian Crusade

text: Although these dissenting groups shared some common features with the Cathars, such as anti-clericalism and rejection of the sacraments, they did not, except the Paulicians and Bogomils, subscribe to Cathar dualist beliefs. They did not specifically invoke dualism as a tenet. The Cathars may have originated directly from the Bogomils, as some scholars believe in a continuous Manichaean tradition which encompassed both groups. That view is not universally shared. Following the First Crusade, Latin settlers established a dualist community in Constantinople. It is theorized that this group provided Westerners with Latin translations of Greek Bogomil texts, which included the "consolamentum" ritual, thus helping to generate the first organized dualist movement in Western Europe.


title: Albigensian Crusade

text: By the 12th century, organized groups of dissidents, such as the Waldensians and Cathars, were beginning to appear in the towns and cities of newly urbanized areas. In western Mediterranean France, one of the most urbanized areas of Europe at the time, the Cathars grew to represent a popular mass movement, and the belief was spreading to other areas. One such area was Lombardy, which by the 1170s was sustaining a community of Cathars. The Cathar movement was seen by some as a reaction against the corrupt and earthly lifestyles of the clergy. It has also been viewed as a manifestation of dissatisfaction with papal power. The Cathar movement occasionally mingled with Waldensianism. However, it was distinct from it, for while Waldensians agreed with the Cathars in their opposition to the Catholic hierarchy and emphasis on poverty and simplicity, they generally accepted most Catholic teachings. Both movements eventually came under violent persecution, but the main energies of the Church were directed against Catharism, which was both the more radical and the more numerous of the two sects. In Cologne in 1163, four Cathar men and a girl who had traveled to the city from Flanders were burned after refusing to repent. Burnings for heresy had been very uncommon, and in the past had sometimes taken place at the behest of noblemen for political rather than religious reasons over the objections of leading Catholic clergy. After this event however, they grew more frequent. Contact was maintained between the older dualist communities in the Byzantine Empire in the east and the new ones in Western Europe. Emissaries from the former strengthened the dualist beliefs of the latter.


title: Albigensian Crusade

text: Catharism continued to spread, but it had its greatest success in the Languedoc. Cathars established virtually no presence in England, and communities in the Kingdom of France and Germany generally did not last long. It was in the Languedoc that they were the most durable. The Cathars were known as Albigensians because of their association with the city of Albi, and because the 1176 Church Council which declared the Cathar doctrine heretical was held near Albi. The condemnation was repeated through the Third Lateran Council of 1179.


title: Albigensian Crusade

text: Various reasons have been proposed for the Cathar movement's success in the Languedoc relative to other places. A traditional explanation has been the reputed corruption and poor quality of the clergy, which, according to many accounts, manifested itself through love of money and sexual escapades. Many priests in the Languedoc, especially those in rural parishes, were often poorly educated and functionally illiterate. Many were appointed to their posts by laymen. However, the theory that the inadequacy of the clergy was the primary factor has been challenged on the grounds of similar stories about clergy appearing elsewhere in areas of Europe that did not have large numbers of religious deviants. However, there is evidence of greater corruption among bishops in the Languedoc than in other areas in Europe. Pope Innocent III wrote a letter in which he accused the Archbishop of Narbonne of never having visited his diocese during his 10 years as bishop and of demanding money from someone as payment for consecrating him as a bishop. Innocent eventually suspended four bishops in the Languedoc-the Archbishop of Narbonne, and the bishops of Toulouse, Béziers, and Viviers-from their duties. The poor quality of bishops in the Languedoc was due to a mix of the lack of political centralization in the region as well as the papacy placing higher importance on appointments in more politically sensitive areas. The chaotic situation in the episcopacy contributed to the inability of the Church to stamp out the heresy. Among the people, the Cathars were a minority, but they won acceptance from many Catholics in the region. Those who became Cathars were often accepted by their families. Several Cathars were chosen as members of the governing council of the city of Toulouse. The Languedoc region participated less in popular religious movements than other areas of Europe. The First Crusade stirred up some support in the area, as Raymond IV, Count of Toulouse was one of its principal leaders. Nevertheless, the popularity of Crusading was not as durable in the Languedoc as it was in France. Strayer speculates that a general climate of laxity prevailed in the region which allowed nonconformist religious movements to grow without being seriously challenged.


title: Albigensian Crusade

text: On assuming the papacy in 1198, Pope Innocent III resolved to deal with the Cathars and sent a delegation of friars to the province of Languedoc to assess the situation. The Cathars of Languedoc were seen as not showing proper respect for the authority of the French king or the local Catholic Church, and their leaders were being protected by powerful nobles, who had a clear interest in independence from the king. At least in part for this reason, many powerful noblemen embraced Catharism despite making little attempt to follow its strict lifestyle restrictions. In desperation, Innocent turned to Philip II of France, urging him to either force Raymond VI, Count of Toulouse to deal with the heresy or depose him militarily. By 1204, he offered to bless those willing to go on a military campaign against the Cathars with the same indulgence given to crusaders travelling to the Holy Land (the Fourth Crusade, in its late stages at the time, had not shown any signs of going in that direction). However, Philip was engaged in conflict with King John of England, and was unwilling to get involved in a separate conflict in the Languedoc. Hence, the plan stalled.


title: Albigensian Crusade

text: One of the most powerful noblemen, Raymond VI, did not openly embrace Cathar beliefs, but was sympathetic to Catharism and hostile to the French king. He refused to assist the delegation. He was excommunicated in May 1207 and an interdict was placed on his lands. Innocent tried to deal with the situation diplomatically by sending a number of preachers, many of them monks of the Cistercian order, to convert the Cathars. They were under the direction of the senior papal legate, Pierre de Castelnau. The preachers managed to bring some people back into the Catholic faith, but for the most part, were renounced. Pierre himself was extremely unpopular, and once had to flee the region for fear that he would be assassinated. On 13 January 1208, Raymond met Pierre in the hope of gaining absolution. The discussion did not go well. Raymond expelled him and threatened his safety. The following morning, Pierre was killed, allegedly by one of Raymond's knights. Innocent III claimed that Raymond ordered his execution; William of Tudela blames the murder entirely on "an evil-hearted squire hoping to win the Count's approval".


title: Albigensian Crusade

text: Pope Innocent declared Raymond anathematized and released all of his subjects from their oaths of obedience to him. However, Raymond soon attempted to reconcile with the Church by sending legates to Rome. They exchanged gifts, reconciled, and the excommunication was lifted. At the Council of Avignon in 1209, Raymond was again excommunicated for not fulfilling the conditions of ecclesiastical reconciliation. After this, Innocent III called for a crusade against the Albigensians, with the view that a Europe free of heresy could better defend its borders against invading Muslims. The time period of the Crusade coincided with the Fifth and Sixth Crusades in the Holy Land.


title: Albigensian Crusade

text: By mid-1209, around 10,000 Crusaders had gathered in Lyon before marching south. Many Crusaders stayed on for no more than 40 days before being replaced. A large number came from Northern France, while some had volunteered from England. There would also be volunteers from Austria. The question of who would lead the crusade was unclear. In early 1209, Philip II had learned of an anti-French alliance between King John and Holy Roman Emperor Otto IV, both of whom were overlords of different parts of the Languedoc. This motivated him to stay out of the crusade. He refused to campaign in person but promised to send a contingent of troops, insuring that he would have a say in any political settlements that would result from the conflict. Papal legate Arnaud Amalric, Abbott of the Cistercian monastery Cîteaux Abbey, assumed command of the enterprise.


title: Albigensian Crusade

text: As the Crusaders assembled, Raymond attempted to reach an agreement with his nephew and vassal, Raymond Roger Trencavel, the Count of Foix and viscount of Béziers and Carcassonne, for a united defense, but Raymond Roger refused him. Raymond decided to make an accommodation with the Crusaders. He was fiercely opposed by Amalric, but at Raymond's request, Innocent appointed a new legate, Milo, whom he secretly ordered to obey Amalric. On 18 June 1209, Raymond pronounced himself repentant. He was scourged by Milo and declared restored to full Communion with the Church. The following day, he took the Cross, affirming his loyalty to the crusade and promising to aid it. With Raymond restored to unity with the Church, his lands could not be attacked. The Crusaders therefore turned their attention to the lands of Raymond Roger, aiming for the Cathar communities around Albi and Carcassonne. They marched out of Lyon on 24 June and arrived at the Catholic town of Montpellier on 20 July. Raymond Roger was not formally a Cathar but tolerated the sect's existence. There were many Cathars in his domain, and his own sister had become one of the perfect. Nevertheless, Raymond Roger attempted to negotiate with the Crusaders. He declared himself a loyal member of the Church, and disclaimed responsibility for the spread of heresy in his land on account of his youth. He was 24 at that time. The Crusaders' rejected his request for peace. They marched first for Béziers, a city with a strong Cathar community. Raymond Roger initially promised to defend it, but after hearing of the coming of the Crusader army, he abandoned it and hurried back to Carcassonne to prepare his defences. At around the same time, another Crusader army commanded by the Archbishop of Bordeaux took Casseneuil and burned several accused heretics at the stake.


title: Albigensian Crusade

text: The Crusaders captured the small village of Servian and then headed for Béziers, arriving on 21 July 1209. Under the command of Amalric, they started to besiege the city, calling on the Catholics within to come out, and demanding that the Cathars surrender. Neither group did as commanded. The city fell the following day when an abortive sortie was pursued back through the open gates. The entire population was slaughtered and the city burned to the ground. It was reported that Amalric, when asked how to distinguish Cathars from Catholics, responded, "Kill them all! God will know his own." Strayer doubts that Amalric actually said this, but maintains that the statement captures the "spirit" of the Crusaders, who killed nearly every man, woman, and child in the town.


title: Albigensian Crusade

text: Amalric and Milo wrote in a letter to the Pope, claimed that the Crusaders "put to the sword almost 20,000 people". Strayer says that this estimate is too high, but noted that in his letter "the legate expressed no regret about the massacre, not even a word of condolence for the clergy of the cathedral who were killed in front of their own altar". News of the disaster quickly spread and afterwards many settlements, with Narbonne being a prominent example, surrendered without a fight. Others were evacuated. The Crusaders encountered no opposition as they marched toward Carcassonne.


title: Albigensian Crusade

text: After the Massacre at Béziers, the next major target was Carcassonne, a city with many well known Cathars. Carcassonne was well fortified but vulnerable, and overflowing with refugees. The Crusaders traversed the 45 miles between Béziers and Carcassonne in six days, arriving in the city on 1 August 1209. The siege did not last long. By 7 August, they had cut the city's water supply. Raymond Roger sought negotiations but was taken prisoner while under truce, and Carcassonne surrendered on 15 August. The people were not killed but were forced to leave the town. They were naked according to Peter of Vaux-de-Cernay, a monk and eyewitness to many events of the crusade, but "in their shifts and breeches", according to Guillaume de Puylaurens, a contemporary. Raymond Roger died several months later. Although his death supposedly resulted from dysentery, some suspected that he was assassinated.


title: Albigensian Crusade

text: Simon de Montfort, a prominent French nobleman, was then appointed leader of the Crusader army, and was granted control of the area encompassing Carcassonne, Albi, and Béziers. After the fall of Carcassonne, other towns surrendered without a fight. Albi, Castelnaudary, Castres, Fanjeaux, Limoux, Lombers and Montréal all fell quickly during the autumn.


title: Albigensian Crusade

text: The next battle centred around Lastours and the adjacent castle of Cabaret. Attacked in December 1209, Pierre Roger de Cabaret repulsed the assault. Fighting largely halted over the winter. Due to harsh weather conditions and a small number of soldiers, Simon ceased major offensives and concentrated on holding the territory that he had already won. However, fresh Crusaders eventually arrived. In March 1210, Bram was captured after a short siege. In June, the well-fortified city of Minerve was besieged. The city was not of major strategic importance. Simon's decision to attack it was probably influenced by the large number of perfects who had gathered there. Unable to take the town by storm because of the surrounding geography, Simon launched a heavy bombardment against the town, and in late June the main well was destroyed and on 22 July, the city, short on water, surrendered. Simon wished to treat the occupants leniently, but was pressured by Arnaud Amalric to punish the Cathars. The Crusaders allowed the soldiers defending the town as well as the Catholics inside of it to go free, along with the non-perfect Cathars. The Cathar perfects were given the opportunity to return to Catholicism. Simon and many of his soldiers made strong efforts to convert the Cathar perfects, but were highly unsuccessful. Ultimately, only three women recanted. The 140 who refused were burned at the stake. Some entered the flames voluntarily, not awaiting their executioners.


title: Albigensian Crusade

text: In August, the Crusade proceeded to the stronghold of Termes. Despite sallies from Pierre-Roger de Cabaret, the siege was solid. The occupants of Termes suffered from a shortage of water, and Ramon (Raymond) de Termes agreed to a temporary truce. However, the Cathars were briefly relieved by an intense rainstorm, and so Raymond refused to surrender. Ultimately, the defenders were not able to break the siege, and on 22 November the Cathars managed to abandon the city and escape.


title: Albigensian Crusade

text: By the time operations resumed in 1211, the actions of Arnaud-Amaury and Simon de Montfort had alienated several important lords, including Raymond de Toulouse, who had been excommunicated again. The Crusaders returned in force to Lastours in March and Pierre-Roger de Cabaret soon agreed to surrender. In April, 1211, de Montfort laid siege to Lavaur. As the siege continued, fresh troops, arriving from all over Europe, were sent to Lavaur. On the way, while passing the crossroads of Auvezines, in the village of Montgey, they were ambushed by troops sent out from Toulouse and led by Raymond-Roger, Count of Foix and his son Roger-Bernard. Many citizens, Catholic and Cathar, and the local peasantry had joined them for the battle. All but one of the six thousand crusaders were killed in the battle.


title: Albigensian Crusade

text: In May the castle of Aimery de Montréal was retaken; he and his senior knights were hanged, and several hundred Cathars were burned. Cassès fell easily in early June. Afterwards, Simon marched towards Montferrand, where Raymond of Toulouse had placed his brother, Baldwin, in command. After a short siege, Baldwin signed an agreement to abandon the fort in return for swearing an oath to go free and to not fight again against the Crusaders. Baldwin briefly returned to Raymond, but afterward defected to the Crusaders and remained loyal to them thereafter. After taking Montferrand, the Crusaders headed for Toulouse. The town was besieged, but for once the attackers were short of supplies and men, and Simon de Montfort withdrew before the end of the month. Emboldened, Raymond de Toulouse led a force to attack Montfort at Castelnaudary in September. A force of Crusaders arrived to relieve Montfort, and just barely beat back a counterattack by Occitan forces under Raymond-Roger. Montfort broke free from the siege, and Raymond was forced to withdraw. Throughout the first part of 1212, Simon worked on encircling Toulouse. He was successful through a combination of rapid military movements and his policy of quickly getting towns to surrender in exchange for not being sacked. The encirclement of Toulouse restricted Raymond's communication with his allies in Aquitaine and the Pyrenees. He faced a shortage of income and increasingly disloyal vassals.


title: Albigensian Crusade

text: To repel the Crusaders, the Cathars turned to Peter II of Aragon for assistance. Peter II had been crowned King of Aragon by Innocent III in 1204. He fought the Moors in Spain, and served in the Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa. However, his sister, Eleanor, had married Raymond VI, securing an alliance. Peter was able to use the prestige from his victories in the south against the Moors, along with the persuasion of a delegation sent to Rome, to lead Innocent III to order a halt to the crusade. Innocent trusted Peter and was hoping to bring an end to the Albigensian Crusade to launch a new crusade in the Middle East and to maintain pressure on the Moors. As the Cathars had suffered many defeats, and as those bishops he felt had been too lenient with heresy had been removed, he believed that the time had come to bring peace to the Languedoc. On 15 January 1213, Innocent wrote to Arnaud Amaury, papal legate and newly appointed Bishop of Narbonne, as well as to Montfort. He rebuked Simon for his alleged attacks on Christians and ordered him to restore the lands that he had taken. In addition, Innocent removed most of the crusading indulgences and demanded that Simon and his legates hold a council, listen to Peter, and report their feelings to him. Peter petitioned the clergy at the Council of Lavaur to restore Raymond's lands, arguing that he was ready to repent. If this was unacceptable, the lands could be placed under the protection of his son while he went on crusade. The council rejected his recommendations, refusing to absolve Raymond and insisting that the lands Peter believed should be returned were still influenced by heresy.


title: Albigensian Crusade

text: Peter rejected the council's verdict. Concerned that Simon had grown too powerful, he decided to come to the aid of Toulouse. The Crown of Aragon, under Peter II, allied with the County of Toulouse and various other entities to oppose Simon. These actions alarmed Innocent, who after hearing from Simon's delegation denounced Peter and ordered a renewal of the crusade. On 21 May, he sent Peter a letter severely castigating him for allegedly providing false information, and warning him not to oppose the Crusaders. He was threatened with excommunication. The crusade was not restored to its initial status. In April 1213, Innocent issued the papal bull "Quia maior," which called for the Fifth Crusade. It limited indulgences for those participating in the Albigensian Crusade exclusively to Crusaders from the Languedoc.


title: Albigensian Crusade

text: Peter's coalition force engaged Simon's troops on 12 September in the Battle of Muret. The Crusaders were heavily outnumbered. Peter and Simon both organized their troops into three lines. The first of the Crusader lines was beaten back, but Simon managed to outflank the coalition cavalry. Peter II was struck down and killed. The coalition forces, hearing of his death, retreated in confusion. This allowed Simon's troops to occupy the northern part of Toulouse.


title: Albigensian Crusade

text: It was a serious blow to the resistance, and in 1214 the situation became worse. As the Crusaders continued their advance, Raymond and his son Raymond VII of Toulouse were forced to flee to England. King John of England was wary of the crusade due to Simon's loyalty to the French crown. He visited the Languedoc, and though direct confrontation between English troops and Crusaders was usually avoided, a contingent of King John's soldiers did help defend Marmande against the Crusaders in 1214. In 1214, Philip won a major victory against the English-German alliance at the Battle of Bouvines, helping to solidify the success of the Albigensian Crusade. In November, Simon de Montfort entered Périgord and easily captured the castles of Domme and Montfort; he also occupied Castlenaud and destroyed the fortifications of Beynac. In 1215, Castelnaud was recaptured by Montfort, and the Crusaders entered Toulouse. The town paid an indemnity of 30,000 marks. Toulouse was gifted to Montfort. The Fourth Council of the Lateran in 1215 solidified Crusader control over the area by officially proclaiming Simon the Count of Toulouse. It proclaimed that all of the lands previously Raymond VI that had been conquered by the crusade would be placed under the control of Simon IV de Montfort, and that the lands which had not yet been conquered would be placed under the protection of the Church until Raymond VII was old enough to govern them. The Council also once again called for a new crusade in the Middle East, which dried up recruits for the Albigensian Crusade, forcing Simon to rely increasingly heavily on mercenaries.


title: Albigensian Crusade

text: Raymond VI, together with Raymond VII, returned to the region in April 1216 and soon raised a substantial force from disaffected towns. Beaucaire was besieged in May. After three months, the occupants were running low on supplies, and reached an agreement with Raymond to surrender the castle in exchange for being allowed to leave with their arms. The efforts of Montfort to relieve the town were repulsed. Innocent III died suddenly in July 1216 and the crusade was left in temporary disarray. The command passed to the more cautious Philip II of France, who was reluctant to vigorously prosecute the crusade. At the time, he was still heavily involved in conflict with King John of England.


title: Albigensian Crusade

text: Montfort then had to put down an uprising in Toulouse before heading west to capture Bigorre, but he was repulsed at Lourdes in December 1216. On 12 September 1217, Raymond retook Toulouse without a fight while Montfort was occupied in the Foix region. Montfort hurried back, but his forces were insufficient to retake the town before campaigning halted. Responding to a call from Pope Honorius III to renew the crusade, Montfort resumed the siege in the spring of 1218. On 25 June or 29, while attempting to fend off a sally by the defenders, Montfort was struck and killed by a stone hurled from defensive siege equipment. Toulouse was held, and the Crusaders driven back. Popular accounts state that the city's artillery was operated by the women and girls of Toulouse. In August, reacting to the crusade's recent failures, Honorius restored full crusading indulgences to those fighting against the Cathars.


title: Albigensian Crusade

text: The crusade continued with renewed vigour. Philip refused to command in person, but agreed to appoint his son, the also reluctant Prince Louis, to lead an expedition. His army marched south beginning in May 1219, passing through Poitou. In June, an army under Amaury de Montfort, son of the late Simon, joined by Louis, besieged Marmande. The town fell in June 1219. Its occupants, excluding only the commander and his knights, were massacred. After capturing Marmande, Louis attempted to retake Toulouse. Following a siege of six weeks, the army abandoned the mission and went home. Honorius III called the endeavour a "miserable setback". Without Louis's troops, Amaury was unable to hold on to the lands that he had taken, and the Cathars were able to retake much of their land. Castelnaudary was retaken by troops under Raymond VII. Amaury again besieged the town from July 1220 to March 1221, but it withstood an eight-month assault. In 1221, the success of Raymond and his son continued: Montréal and Fanjeaux were retaken and many Catholics were forced to flee. By 1222, Raymond VII had reclaimed all the lands that had been lost. That same year, Raymond VI died and was succeeded by Raymond VII. On 14 July 1223, Philip II died, and Louis VIII succeeded him as king. In 1224, Amaury de Montfort abandoned Carcassonne. Raymond VII returned from exile to reclaim the area. That same year, Amaury ceded his remaining lands to Louis VIII.


title: Albigensian Crusade

text: In November 1225, the Council of Bourges convened to deal with the Cathar heresy. At the council, Raymond VII, like his father, was excommunicated. The council gathered a thousand churchmen to authorize a tax on their annual incomes, the "Albigensian tenth", to support the Crusade, though permanent reforms intended to fund the papacy in perpetuity foundered.


title: Albigensian Crusade

text: Louis VIII headed the new crusade. He took the cross in January 1226. His army assembled at Bourges in May. While the exact number of troops present is unknown, it was certainly the largest force ever sent against the Cathars. Louis set out with his army in June. The Crusaders captured once more the towns of Béziers, Carcassonne, Beaucaire, and Marseille, this time with no resistance. However, Avignon, nominally under the rule of the German emperor, did resist, refusing to open its gates to the French troops. Not wanting to storm the well-fortified walls of the town, Louis settled in for a siege. A frontal assault that August was fiercely beaten back. Finally, in early September, the town surrendered, agreeing to pay 6,000 marks and destroy its walls. The town was occupied on 9 September. No killing or looting took place. Louis VIII died in November and was succeeded by the child king Louis IX. But Queen-regent Blanche of Castile allowed the crusade to continue under Humbert V de Beaujeu. Labécède fell in 1227 and Vareilles in 1228. At that time, the Crusaders once again besieged Toulouse. While doing so, they systematically laid waste to the surrounding landscape: uprooting vineyards, burning fields and farms, and slaughtering livestock. Eventually, the city was retaken. Raymond did not have the manpower to intervene.


title: Albigensian Crusade

text: Eventually, Queen Blanche offered Raymond VII a treaty recognizing him as ruler of Toulouse in exchange for his fighting the Cathars, returning all church property, turning over his castles and destroying the defences of Toulouse. Moreover, Raymond had to marry his daughter Joan to Louis' brother Alphonse of Poitiers, with the couple and their heirs obtaining Toulouse after Raymond's death, and the inheritance reverting to the king. Raymond agreed and signed the Treaty of Paris at Meaux on 12 April 1229.


title: Albigensian Crusade

text: Historian Daniel Power notes that the fact that Peter of Vaux-de-Cernay's "Historia Albigensis", which many historians of the crusade rely heavily upon, was published only in 1218 leaves a shortage of primary source material for events after that year. As such, there is more difficulty in discerning the nature of various events during the subsequent time period.


title: Albigensian Crusade

text: With the military phase of the campaign against the Cathars now primarily at an end, the Inquisition was established under Pope Gregory IX in 1234 to uproot heretical movements, including the remaining Cathars. Operating in the south at Toulouse, Albi, Carcassonne and other towns during the whole of the 13th century, and a great part of the 14th, it succeeded in crushing Catharism as a popular movement and driving its remaining adherents underground. Punishments for Cathars varied greatly. Most frequently, they were made to wear yellow crosses atop their garments as a sign of outward penance. Others made obligatory pilgrimages, which often included fighting against Muslims. Visiting a local church naked once each month to be scourged was also a common punishment, including for returned pilgrims. Cathars who were slow to repent suffered imprisonment and, often, the loss of property. Others who altogether refused to repent were burned.


title: Albigensian Crusade

text: Friars of the Dominican Order, named after their founder, Saint Dominic, would travel to towns and villages preaching in favor of the teachings of the Church and against heresy. In some cases, they took part in prosecuting Cathars.


title: Albigensian Crusade

text: From May 1243 to March 1244, the Cathar fortress of Montségur was besieged by the troops of the seneschal of Carcassonne and Pierre Amiel, the Archbishop of Narbonne. On 16 March 1244, a large massacre took place, in which over 200 Cathar perfects were burnt in an enormous pyre at the "prat dels cremats" ("field of the burned") near the foot of the castle. After this, Catharism did not completely vanish, but was practiced by its remaining adherents in secret. The Inquisition continued to search for and attempt to prosecute Cathars. While few prominent men joined the Cathars, a small group of ordinary followers remained and were generally successful at concealing themselves. The Inquisitors sometimes used torture as a method to find Cathars, but still were able to catch only a relatively small number.


title: Albigensian Crusade

text: In 1242, Raymond VII launched an unsuccessful rebellion against France. He died in 1249, and when Alphonse died in 1271, the County of Toulouse was annexed by the Kingdom of France. The Inquisition received funding from the French monarchy. In the 1290s, King Philip IV, who was in conflict with Pope Boniface VIII, limited its funding and severely restricted its activities. However, after visiting southern France in 1303, he became alarmed by the anti-monarchical sentiments of the people in the region, especially in Carcassonne, and decided to remove the restrictions placed on the Inquisition.


title: Albigensian Crusade

text: Pope Clement V introduced new rules designed to protect the rights of the accused. The Dominican Bernard Gui, Inquisitor of Toulouse from 1308 to 1323, wrote a manual discussing the customs of non-Catholic sects and the methods to be employed by the Inquisitors in combating heresy. A large portion of the manual describes the reputed customs of the Cathars, while contrasting them with those of Catholics. Gui also describes methods to be used for interrogating accused Cathars. He ruled that any person found to have died without confessing his known heresy would have his remains exhumed and burned, while any person known to have been a heretic but not known whether to have confessed or not would have his body unearthed but not burned. Under Gui, a final push against Catharism began. By 1350, all known remnants of the movement had been extinguished.


title: Albigensian Crusade

text: According to Edward Peters, the violence of the Albigensian Crusade was not in line with the reforms and plans of Innocent, who stressed confession, reform of the clergy and laity, and pastoral teachings to oppose heresy. Peters maintains that the violence was due to the crusade being under the control of mobs, petty rulers, and local bishops who did not uphold Innocent's ideas. The uncontainable, prejudicial passion of local mobs and heresy hunters, the violence of secular courts, and the bloodshed of the Albigensian Crusade sparked a desire within the papacy to implement greater control over the prosecution of heresy. This desire led to the development of organized legal procedures for dealing with heretics.


title: Albigensian Crusade

text: As a result of the Albigensian Crusade, there were only a small number of French recruits for the Fifth and Sixth crusades. Strayer argues that the Albigensian Crusade increased the power of the French monarchy and made the papacy more dependent on it. This would eventually lead to the Avignon Papacy.


title: Albigensian Crusade

text: Numerous songs concerning the Albigensian Crusade survive from the troubadour poet-composers, particularly those who were also knights. For instance, the troubadour Raimon de Miraval wrote a song pleading with Peter II to recapture his castle which had been captured by Simon, while a co-written song by the troubadours Tomier and Palaizi condemns the treatment of Raymond VI and urges him to fight back. The epic poem "Canso de la Crozada" () was written in the early 13th century and narrates the Albigensian Crusade. The crusade and its immediate aftermath inaugurated the eventual decline of the troubadour tradition. Many Occitan courts had been patrons of the troubadours, and their destruction resulted in the gradual deterioration of the practice and the immigration of most troubadours from Southern France to royal courts in Italy, Spain and Hungary.


title: Albigensian Crusade

text: Raphael Lemkin, who coined the word "genocide" in the 20th century, referred to the Albigensian Crusade as "one of the most conclusive cases of genocide in religious history". Mark Gregory Pegg wrote, "The Albigensian Crusade ushered genocide into the West by linking divine salvation to mass murder, by making slaughter as loving an act as His sacrifice on the cross." Robert E. Lerner argued that Pegg's classification of the Albigensian Crusade as a genocide was inappropriate on the grounds that it "was proclaimed against unbelievers ... not against a 'genus' or people; those who joined the crusade had no intention of annihilating the population of southern France ... If Pegg wishes to connect the Albigensian Crusade to modern ethnic slaughter, well—words fail me (as they do him)." Laurence Marvin is not as dismissive as Lerner regarding Pegg's contention that the Albigensian Crusade was a genocide, but he takes issue with Pegg's argument that the Albigensian Crusade formed an important historical precedent for later genocides, including the Holocaust.


title: Albigensian Crusade

text: Kurt Jonassohn and Karin Solveig Björnson describe the Albigensian Crusade as "the first ideological genocide". Kurt Jonassohn and Frank Chalk (who together founded the Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies) include a detailed case study of the Albigensian Crusade in their genocide studies textbook "The History and Sociology of Genocide: Analyses and Case Studies", authored by Strayer and Malise Ruthven.


title: Peter Kürten

text: Peter Kürten (; 26 May 1883 – 2 July 1931) was a German serial killer, known as "The Vampire of Düsseldorf" and the "Düsseldorf Monster", who committed a series of murders and sexual assaults between February and November 1929 in the city of Düsseldorf. In the years before these assaults and murders, Kürten had amassed a lengthy criminal record for offences including arson and attempted murder. He also confessed to the 1913 murder of a nine-year-old girl in Mülheim am Rhein and the attempted murder of a 17-year-old girl in Düsseldorf.


title: Peter Kürten

text: Described by as "the king of the sexual perverts", Kürten was found guilty of nine counts of murder and seven counts of attempted murder for which he was sentenced to death by beheading in April 1931. He was executed in July 1931 at age 48.


title: Peter Kürten

text: Kürten became known as the "Vampire of Düsseldorf" because he occasionally made attempts to drink the blood from his victims' wounds, and the "Düsseldorf Monster" both because the majority of his murders were committed in and around the city of Düsseldorf, and the savagery he inflicted upon his victims' bodies.


title: Peter Kürten

text: Peter Kürten was born into a poverty-stricken, abusive family in Mülheim am Rhein on 26 May 1883, the oldest of thirteen children (two of whom died at an early age). Kürten's parents were both alcoholics who lived in a one-bedroom apartment, and Kürten's father frequently beat his wife and children, particularly when he was drunk. When intoxicated, Kürten's father often forced his wife and children to assemble before him before ordering his wife to strip naked and engage in intercourse with him as his children watched. He was jailed for eighteen months in 1897 for repeatedly raping his eldest daughter, who was aged 13. Shortly thereafter, Kürten's mother obtained a separation order, and later remarried and relocated to Düsseldorf.


title: Peter Kürten

text: In 1888, Kürten attempted to drown one of his playmates. Four years later, he befriended a local dog-catcher who lived in the same building as his family, and began accompanying him on his rounds. This individual often tortured and killed the animals he caught, and Kürten soon became an active and willing participant in torturing the animals.


title: Peter Kürten

text: Being the eldest surviving son, Kürten was the target of much of his father's physical abuse and frequently refused to return home from school as a result. Although he was a good student, he later recollected his academic performance suffered due to the extensive physical violence he endured. From an early age, Kürten often ran away from home for periods of time ranging from days to weeks. Much of the time Kürten spent on the streets was in the company of petty criminals and social misfits. Via these acquaintances, Kürten was introduced to various forms of petty crime, which he initially committed as a means of feeding and clothing himself when living on the streets.


title: Peter Kürten

text: Kürten later claimed to have committed his first murders at the age of nine, when he pushed a school friend who he knew was unable to swim off a log raft. When a second boy attempted to save the drowning youngster, Kürten held his head under the water, so that both boys drowned. Both deaths were ruled by authorities as being accidental.


title: Peter Kürten

text: At the age of 13, Kürten formed a relationship with a girl his age and, although she allowed Kürten to undress and fondle her, she would resist any attempts he made to engage in intercourse. To relieve his sexual urges, Kürten resorted to acts of bestiality with the sheep, pigs and goats in local stables, but later claimed he obtained his greatest sense of elation if he actually stabbed these animals just before his achieving orgasm. Thus, he began stabbing and slashing animals with increasing frequency to achieve orgasms, although he was adamant this behaviour ended when he was observed stabbing a pig. He also attempted to rape the same sister his father had earlier molested.


title: Peter Kürten

text: In 1897, Kürten left school. At his father's insistence, he obtained employment as an apprentice molder. This apprenticeship lasted for two years before Kürten stole all the money he could find in his household, plus approximately 300 marks from his employer, and ran away from home. He relocated to Koblenz, where he began a brief relationship with a prostitute two years his senior who, he claimed, willingly submitted to every form of sexual perversion he demanded of her. He was apprehended just four weeks later and charged with both breaking and entering and theft, and subsequently sentenced to one month's imprisonment. He was released from prison in August 1899 and reverted to the life of petty crime he had lived before his arrest.


title: Peter Kürten

text: Kürten claimed to have committed his first murder in November 1899. In his 1930 confessions to investigators, Kürten claimed to have "picked up an 18-year-old girl at the Alleestraße", and persuaded her to accompany him to the Hofgarten. There, he claimed to have engaged in sex with the girl before strangling her into unconsciousness with his bare hands before leaving the scene, believing her to be dead.


title: Peter Kürten

text: No contemporaneous records exist to corroborate Kürten's claims. If this attack did take place, the victim likely survived this assault. Nonetheless, Kürten later stated that, via his committing this act, he had proven to himself that the greatest heights of sexual ecstasy could only be achieved in this manner.


title: Peter Kürten

text: Shortly thereafter, in 1900, Kürten was arrested for fraud. He would be rearrested later the same year on the same charge, although on this second occasion, charges pertaining to his 1899 Düsseldorf thefts, plus the attempted murder of a girl with a firearm, were added to the indictment. Consequently, Kürten was sentenced to four years' imprisonment in October 1900. He served this sentence in Derendorf, a borough of Düsseldorf.


title: Peter Kürten

text: Released in the summer of 1904, Kürten was drafted into the Imperial German Army; he was deployed to the city of Metz in Lorraine to serve in the 98th Infantry Regiment, although he soon deserted. That autumn, Kürten began committing acts of arson, which he would discreetly watch from a distance as emergency services attempted to extinguish the fires. The majority of these fires were in barns and haylofts, and Kürten would admit to police he had committed around 24 acts of arson upon his arrest that New Year's Eve. He also freely admitted these fires had been committed both for his sexual excitement and in the hope of burning sleeping tramps alive.


title: Peter Kürten

text: As a result of his desertion, Kürten was tried by the military court and convicted of desertion in addition to multiple counts of arson, robbery and attempted robbery (the latter charges pertaining to acts he had also committed that year), and was subsequently imprisoned from 1905 to 1913. Kürten served his sentence in Münster, with much of his time spent in solitary confinement for repeated instances of insubordination. He would later claim to investigators and psychologists this period of incarceration was that in which he first encountered severe forms of discipline, and as such, the erotic fantasies he had earlier developed while incarcerated in Derendorf expanded to include graphic fantasies of his striking out at society and killing masses of people; these fantasies became ever more paramount and overbearing in his mind, and Kürten later claimed that he derived the "sort of pleasures from these visions that other people would get from thinking about a naked woman", adding that he occasionally spontaneously ejaculated while preoccupied with such thoughts.


title: Peter Kürten

text: The first murder Kürten definitively committed occurred on 25 May 1913. During the course of a burglary at a tavern in Mülheim am Rhein, he encountered a nine-year-old girl named Christine Klein asleep in her bed. Kürten strangled the child, then slashed her twice across the throat with a pocket knife, ejaculating as he heard the blood dripping from her wounds onto the floor by her bed and on his hand.


title: Peter Kürten

text: The following day, Kürten specifically returned to Köln to drink in a tavern located directly opposite that in which he had murdered Klein, so that he could listen to the locals' reactions to the child's murder. He later recollected to investigators that he derived an extreme sense of gratification from the general disgust, repulsion, and outrage he had heard in the patrons' conversations. Moreover, in the weeks following Klein's funeral, Kürten occasionally travelled to Mülheim am Rhein to visit the child's grave, adding that when he handled the soil covering the grave, he spontaneously ejaculated.


title: Peter Kürten

text: Two months later—again in the course of committing a burglary with the aid of a skeleton key—Kürten broke into a home in Düsseldorf. Discovering a 17-year-old girl named Gertrud Franken asleep in her bed, Kürten manually strangled the girl, ejaculating at the sight of blood spouting from her mouth, before leaving the crime scene. Kürten managed to escape from the scene of this attempted murder and the earlier murder of Klein undetected.


title: Peter Kürten

text: Just days after the attempted murder of Franken, on 14 July, Kürten was arrested for a series of arson attacks and burglaries. He was sentenced to six years imprisonment, although his repeated instances of insubordination, while imprisoned, saw his incarceration extended by a further two years. Kürten served this sentence in a military prison in the town of Brieg (then part of the German Empire).


title: Peter Kürten

text: Released in April 1921, Kürten relocated to Altenburg, where he initially lived with his sister. Through his sister, Kürten became acquainted with a woman three years his senior named Auguste Scharf, a sweet shop proprietor and former prostitute who had previously been convicted of shooting her fiancé to death, and to whom Kürten initially posed as a former prisoner of war. Two years later, Kürten and Scharf married, and although the couple regularly engaged in sex, Kürten later admitted he could consummate his marriage only by fantasising about committing violence against another individual, and that, after their wedding night, he engaged in intercourse with his wife only at her invitation.


title: Peter Kürten

text: For the first time in his life, Kürten obtained regular employment, also becoming an active trades union official, although, with the exception of his wife, he formed no close friendships. In 1925, he returned with Scharf to Düsseldorf, where he soon began affairs with a servant girl named Tiede and a housemaid named Mech. Both women were frequently subjected to partial strangulation when they submitted to intercourse, with Tiede once being informed by Kürten, "That's what love means." When his wife discovered his infidelity, Tiede reported Kürten to police, claiming he had seduced her; Mech alleged Kürten had raped her. The more serious charge was later dropped, although Tiede's allegations were pursued, thus earning Kürten an eight-month prison sentence for seduction and threatening behaviour. Kürten served six months of this sentence, with his early release being upon the condition he left Düsseldorf. He later successfully appealed the ruling that he relocate from the city.


title: Peter Kürten

text: On 3 February 1929, Kürten stalked an elderly woman named Apollonia Kühn. Waiting until Kühn was shielded from the view of potential witnesses by bushes, Kürten pounced upon her, grabbing her by the lapels of her coat and shouting the words, "No row! Don't scream!" before dragging her into nearby undergrowth, where he proceeded to stab her 24 times with a sharpened pair of scissors. Although many of the blows were inflicted so deeply that the scissors struck her bones, Kühn survived her injuries.


title: Peter Kürten

text: On 8 February, Kürten strangled a nine-year-old girl named Rosa Ohliger into unconsciousness before stabbing her in the stomach, temple, genitals and heart with a pair of scissors, spontaneously ejaculating as he knifed the child. He then inserted his semen into her vagina with his fingers. Kürten then made a rudimentary effort to hide Ohliger's body by dragging it beneath a hedge before returning to the scene with a bottle of kerosene several hours later and setting the child's body alight, achieving an orgasm at the sight of the flames. Ohliger's body was found beneath a hedge the following day.


title: Peter Kürten

text: Five days later, on 13 February, Kürten murdered a 45-year-old mechanic named Rudolf Scheer in the suburb of Flingen Nord, stabbing him twenty times, particularly about the head, back and eyes. Following the discovery of Scheer's body, Kürten returned to the scene of the murder to converse with police, falsely informing one detective he had heard about the murder via telephone.


title: Peter Kürten

text: Despite the differences in age and sex of these three victims, the fact that all three crimes had been committed in the Flingern district of Düsseldorf at dusk, that each victim had received a multitude of stab wounds likely inflicted in rapid succession and invariably involving at least one wound to the temple, plus the absence of a common motive such as robbery, led investigators to conclude the same perpetrator had committed all three attacks. Furthermore, the seemingly random selection of these victims led criminologists to remark as to the abnormal nature of the perpetrator.


title: Peter Kürten

text: Although Kürten did attempt to strangle four women between March and July 1929, one of whom he claimed to have thrown into the Rhine River, he is not known to have killed any further victims until 11 August when he raped, strangled, then repeatedly stabbed a young woman named Maria Hahn. Kürten had first encountered Hahn—whom he described as "a girl looking for marriage"—on 8 August, and had arranged to take her on a date to the Neandertal district of Düsseldorf the following Sunday. After several hours in Hahn's company, Kürten lured her into a meadow in order that he could kill her; he later admitted Hahn had repeatedly pleaded with him to spare her life as he alternately strangled her, stabbed her in the chest and head, or sat astride her body, waiting for her to die. Hahn died approximately one hour after Kürten had begun attacking her. Fearful his wife might connect the bloodstains she had noted on his clothes with Hahn's murder, Kürten later buried her body in a cornfield, only to return to her body several weeks later with the intention of nailing her decomposing remains to a tree in a mock crucifixion to shock and disgust the public; however, Hahn's remains proved too heavy for Kürten to complete this act, and he simply returned her corpse to her grave before embracing and caressing the decomposing body as he lay beneath her remains. He then reburied Hahn's body. According to Kürten's later confession, both before and after he had attempted to impale Hahn's corpse to a tree, he "went to the grave many times and kept improving on it; and every time I thought of what was lying there and was filled with satisfaction."


title: Peter Kürten

text: Three months after Kürten had murdered Hahn, he posted an anonymous letter to the police in which he confessed to the murder, adding that her remains had been buried in a field. In this letter, Kürten also drew a crude map describing the location of the remains. This letter would prove sufficiently detailed to enable investigators to locate Hahn's remains on 15 November.


title: Peter Kürten

text: Following the Hahn murder, Kürten changed his choice of weapon from scissors to a knife in an apparent effort to convince police more than one perpetrator was responsible for the unfolding crime spree. In the early morning of 21 August, he randomly stabbed an 18-year-old girl, a 30-year-old man, and a 37-year-old woman in separate attacks. All three were seriously wounded, and all stated to police their assailant had not spoken a word to them before he had attacked them. Three days later, at a fairground in the suburb of Flehe, Kürten observed two foster sisters (aged 5 and 14) walking from the fairground, through adjoining allotments, en route to their home. Sending the older girl, Luise Lenzen, on an errand to purchase cigarettes for him upon the promise of being given 20 pfennig, Kürten lifted the younger child, Gertrude Hamacher, off the ground by her neck and strangled her into unconsciousness before cutting her throat and discarding her body in a patch of runner beans. When Lenzen returned to the scene, Kürten partially strangled her before stabbing her about the torso, with one wound piercing her aorta. He also bit and twice cut her throat before sucking blood from the wounds. Neither girl had been sexually assaulted, and the fact only Lenzen's footprints were found within seven meters of her body suggests she may have attempted to flee from her attacker before collapsing.


title: Peter Kürten

text: The following day, Kürten accosted a 27-year-old housemaid named Gertrude Schulte, whom he openly asked to engage in sex with him. Upon being rebuffed, Kürten shouted, "Well, die then!" before repeatedly stabbing the woman in the head, neck, shoulder, and back. Schulte survived her injuries, although she was unable to provide investigators with a clear description of her assailant, beyond assuming his age to be around 40.


title: Peter Kürten

text: Kürten attempted to murder two further victims—one by strangulation; another by stabbing—in September, before opting to predominantly use a hammer in his murders.


title: Peter Kürten

text: On the evening of 30 September, Kürten encountered a 31-year-old servant girl named Ida Reuter at Düsseldorf station. He successfully persuaded Reuter to accompany him to a café, then for a walk through the local Hofgarten close to the Rhine River. At this location, he repeatedly struck her about the head with a hammer both before and after he had raped her. At one stage in this assault, Reuter regained consciousness and began pleading with Kürten to spare her life. In response, Kürten simply "gave her other hammer blows on the head and misused her".


title: Peter Kürten

text: Eleven days later, on 11 October, he encountered a 22-year-old servant girl named Elizabeth Dörrier outside a theatre. As had been the case with Reuter, Dörrier agreed to accompany Kürten for a drink at a café before the pair took a train to Grafenberg, with view to a walk alongside the Kleine Düssel river, where she was struck once across her right temple with a hammer, then raped. Kürten struck her repeatedly about the head and both temples with his hammer and left her for dead. Dörrier was found in a coma at 6:30 a.m. the following morning; she died from her injuries the following day. On 25 October, Kürten attacked two women with a hammer; both survived, although in the second instance, this may have been because Kürten's hammer broke in the attack.


title: Peter Kürten

text: On 7 November 1929, Kürten encountered a 5-year-old girl named Gertrude Albermann in the Flingern district of Düsseldorf; he persuaded the child to accompany him to a section of deserted allotments, where he seized her by the throat and strangled her, stabbing her once in the left temple with a pair of scissors as per his modus operandi. When Albermann "collapsed to the ground without a sound", Kürten stabbed the child 34 further times in the temple and chest before placing her body in a pile of nettles close to a factory wall.


title: Peter Kürten

text: By the late summer of 1929, the murders committed by the individual the press had dubbed "The Vampire of Düsseldorf" were receiving considerable national and international attention. Due to the sheer savagery of the murders, the diverse background of the victims, and the differing methods in which they had been assaulted and/or murdered, both the police and the press theorized the spate of assaults and murders were the work of more than one perpetrator. By the end of 1929, Düsseldorf police had received more than 13,000 letters from the public. With assistance from surrounding police forces, each lead was painstakingly pursued. As a result of this collective investigation into the killings, more than 9,000 individuals were interviewed, 2,650 other clues painstakingly pursued and a list of 900,000 different names were compiled upon an official potential suspect list.


title: Peter Kürten

text: Two days after the murder of Gertrude Albermann, a local communist newspaper received a map revealing the location of the grave of Maria Hahn. In this drawing, Kürten also revealed precisely where he had left Albermann's body (which had been found earlier that day), describing the exact position of her corpse, which he stated could be found face-down among bricks and rubble. An analysis of the handwriting revealed the author was the same individual who had anonymously informed police in a letter dated 14 October that he had killed Hahn and buried her body "at the edge of the woods". Each of the three letters Kürten had thus far sent to newspapers and police describing his exploits and threatening further assaults and murders were examined by a graphologist, who confirmed the same individual had written each letter, thus leading Ernst Gennat, chief inspector of the Berlin Police, to conclude that one man was responsible for most or all of the spate of assaults and murders.


title: Peter Kürten

text: The murder of Gertrude Albermann proved to be Kürten's final fatal attack, although he did engage in a spate of non-fatal hammer attacks and attempted strangulations between February and May 1930, maiming ten victims in these assaults. All the victims survived and many were able to describe their attacker to police.


title: Peter Kürten

text: On 14 May 1930, an unknown man approached a 20-year-old woman named Maria Budlick at Düsseldorf station. Discovering Budlick had travelled to Düsseldorf from Köln in search of lodgings and employment, he offered to direct her towards a local hostel. Budlick agreed to follow the man, although she became apprehensive when he attempted to lead her through a scarcely populated park. The pair began to argue, whereupon another man approached the two, asking whether Budlick was being pestered by her companion. When Budlick nodded, the man with whom she had been arguing simply walked away. The identity of the man who reportedly came to Budlick's aid was Peter Kürten.


title: Peter Kürten

text: Kürten invited the distressed young woman to his apartment on Mettmanner Straße to eat and drink before Budlick—correctly deducing the underlying motive for Kürten's hospitality—stated she was uninterested in engaging in sex with him. Kürten calmly agreed and offered to lead Budlick to a hotel, although he instead lured her into the Grafenburg Woods, where he seized her by the throat and attempted to strangle her as he raped her. When Budlick began to scream, Kürten released his grasp on her throat, before allowing her to leave.


title: Peter Kürten

text: Budlick did not report this assault to police, but described her ordeal in a letter to a friend, although she addressed the letter incorrectly. As such, the letter was opened at the post office by a clerk on 19 May. Upon reading the contents of the letter, this clerk forwarded the letter to the Düsseldorf police. This letter was read by Chief Inspector Gennat, who assumed there was a slim chance Budlick's assailant might be the Düsseldorf murderer. Gennat interviewed Budlick, who recounted her ordeal, further divulging one of the reasons Kürten had spared her was because she had falsely informed him she could not remember his address. She agreed to lead the police to Kürten's home, on Mettmanner Straße. When the landlady of the property let Budlick into the room of 71 Mettmanner Straße, Budlick confirmed to Gennat this was the address of her assailant. The landlady confirmed to the chief inspector the tenant's name was Peter Kürten.


title: Peter Kürten

text: Although Kürten was not at home when Budlick and Gennat searched his property, he spotted the pair in the communal hallway and promptly left. Knowing that his identity was now known to the police and suspecting they may also have connected him to the crimes committed by the Vampire of Düsseldorf, Kürten confessed to his wife he had raped Budlick and that because of his previous convictions, he may receive fifteen years penal labour. With his wife's consent, he found lodgings in the Adlerstraße district of Düsseldorf, and did not return to his own home until 23 May. Upon returning home, Kürten confessed to his wife he was the Vampire of Düsseldorf. He urged his wife to collect the substantial reward offered for his capture. Auguste Kürten contacted the police the following day. In the information provided to detectives, Kürten's wife explained that although she had known her husband had been repeatedly imprisoned in the past, she was unaware of his culpability in any murders. She then added that her husband had confessed to her his culpability in the Düsseldorf murders and that he was willing to likewise confess to the police. Furthermore, he was to meet her outside St. Rochus church later that day. That afternoon, Kürten was arrested at gunpoint.


title: Peter Kürten

text: Kürten freely admitted his guilt in all the crimes police had attributed to the Vampire of Düsseldorf, and further confessed he had committed the unsolved murder of Christine Klein and the attempted murder of Gertrud Franken in 1913. In total, Kürten admitted to 68 crimes including nine murders and 31 attempted murders. He made no attempt to excuse his crimes but justified them upon the basis of what he saw as the injustices he had endured throughout his life. Nonetheless, he was adamant he had not tortured any of his child victims. Kürten also admitted to both investigators and psychiatrists that the actual sight of his victim's blood was, on many occasions, sufficient to bring him to orgasm, and that, on occasion, if he experienced ejaculation in the act of strangling a woman, he would immediately become apologetic to his victim, proclaiming, "That's what love is all about". He further claimed to have drunk the blood from the throat of one victim, from the temple of another, and to have licked the blood from a third victim's hands. In the Hahn murder, he had drunk so much blood from the neck wound that he had vomited. Kürten also admitted to having decapitated a swan in the spring of 1930 in order that he could drink the blood from the animal's neck, achieving ejaculation in the process.


title: Peter Kürten

text: As Kürten awaited his trial, then later as he awaited his execution, he was extensively interviewed by Dr. Karl Berg. In these interviews, Kürten stated to Dr. Berg that his primary motive in committing any form of criminal activity was one of sexual pleasure, and that he had begun to associate sexual excitement with violent acts and the sight of blood via indulging in both day-dreams and masturbation fantasies — particularly when he had been isolated from human contact. The majority of his assaults and murders had been committed when his wife had been working evenings, and the number of stab or bludgeoning wounds Kürten inflicted upon each victim had varied depending upon the length of time it had taken him to achieve an orgasm. Furthermore, the actual sight of his victim's blood had been integral to his sexual stimulation. Kürten further elaborated to Dr. Berg that once he had committed an attack or murder, the feeling of tension he experienced before the commission of the crime would be superseded by one of relief.


title: Peter Kürten

text: In reference to the actual choice of weapon used in his attacks, Kürten stressed that although he had changed his actual method of attack to deceive investigators into believing they were seeking more than one perpetrator, the weapon he used was inconsequential in reference to his ultimate objective of seeing his victim's blood. Elaborating, Kürten stated: "Whether I took a knife or a pair of scissors or a hammer in order to see blood was a matter of indifference to me or mere chance. Often after the hammer blows the bleeding victims moved and struggled, just as they did when they were throttled." Kürten further confided that although he had occasionally penetrated his female victims, he had only done so to feign the act of coitus as a motive for his crimes. He also confessed that many of his later strangulation victims had only survived his attacks because he had achieved an orgasm in the early throes of the assault.


title: Peter Kürten

text: However, Kürten contradicted these claims by proclaiming to both Dr. Berg and legal examiners that his primary motive in all his criminal activities was to both "strike back at [an] oppressive society" for what he considered the injustice of his being repeatedly incarcerated throughout his life, and as a form of revenge for the neglect and abuse he had endured as a child. These desires had fomented in his mind throughout the long periods he had been in solitary confinement for various forms of insubordination, and Kürten explained that he deliberately broke minor prison rules as a means of guaranteeing that he would be sentenced to solitary confinement in order that he could indulge in these psychosexual fantasies. To Dr. Berg and the legal examiners, Kürten did not deny that he had sexually molested his female victims, or to have stroked or digitally penetrated their genitals as he stabbed, slashed, strangled or bludgeoned their bodies, although throughout his trial Kürten consistently claimed the sexual assault of his victims was not his primary motive.


title: Peter Kürten

text: Both Berg and other psychologists concluded Kürten was not insane, was fully able to control his actions, and appreciated the criminality of his conduct. Each ruled Kürten was legally sane and competent to stand trial.


title: Peter Kürten

text: On 13 April 1931, Peter Kürten stood trial in Düsseldorf. He was charged with nine counts of murder and seven of attempted murder, and was tried before Presiding Judge Dr. Rose. Kürten pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity to each of the charges. Aside from when delivering testimony, Kürten would spend the duration of his trial surrounded by a heavily guarded shoulder-high iron cage specifically constructed to protect him from attack by the enraged relatives of his victims, and his feet were shackled whenever he was inside this cage.


title: Peter Kürten

text: Proceedings began with the prosecution formally reciting each of the charges against Kürten, before they recited the formal confession he had provided to police following his arrest. When then asked by the presiding judge to describe why he had continued to commit acts of arson throughout 1929 and 1930, Kürten explained: "When my desire for injuring people awoke, the love of setting fire to things awoke as well. The sight of the flames excited me, but above all, it was the excitement of the attempts to extinguish the fire and the agitation of those who saw their property being destroyed."


title: Peter Kürten

text: Having first claimed that his initial confession had been delivered to simply allow his wife to recoup the reward money offered for the capture of the Düsseldorf Vampire, several days into his trial, Kürten instructed his defence attorney that he wished to change his plea to one of guilty. Addressing the court, Kürten proclaimed: "I have no remorse. As to whether recollection of my deeds makes me feel ashamed, I will tell you [that] thinking back to all the details is not at all unpleasant. I rather enjoy it." Further pressed as to whether he considered himself to possess a conscience, Kürten stated he did not. Nonetheless, when pressed as to his motivation in confessing, Kürten reiterated: "Why don't you understand that I am fond of my wife, and that I am still fond of her? I have done many wrongs; have been unfaithful over and over again. My wife has never done any wrong. Even when she heard of the many prison sentences I have served, she said: 'I won't let you down, otherwise you'll be lost altogether.' I wanted to fix for my wife a carefree old age."


title: Peter Kürten

text: To counteract Kürten's insanity defence, the prosecution introduced five of the most eminent doctors and psychiatrists in Germany to testify at the trial; each testified that Kürten was legally sane and had been perfectly in control of his actions and impulses at all times. Typical of the testimony delivered by these experts was that of Professor , who testified as to Kürten's actual motivation in his crimes being the desire to achieve the sexual gratification he demanded, and that this satisfaction could only be achieved by acts of brutality, violence and Kürten's knowledge of the pain and misery his actions caused to others. Dr. Karl Berg testified that Kürten's motive in committing murder and attempted murder was 90 percent sadism, and 10 percent revenge relating to his perceived sense of injustice for both the neglect and abuse he had endured both as a child and the discipline he endured while incarcerated. Moreover, Dr. Berg stated that despite Kürten's admission to having embraced and digitally penetrated the corpse of Maria Hahn, and to have spontaneously ejaculated while holding the soil covering the coffin of Christine Klein, his conclusion was that Kürten was not a necrophiliac.


title: Peter Kürten

text: Further proof of Kürten's awareness was referenced by the premeditated nature of his crimes; his ability to abandon an attack if he sensed a risk of being disturbed; and his acute memory of both his crimes and their chronological detail. Also disclosed in the first week of the trial were the deaths of the two boys whom Kürten had confessed to drowning at the age of nine, with the prosecution suggesting these deaths indicated Kürten had displayed a homicidal propensity dating much earlier than 1913. However, this view was disputed by medical witnesses, who suggested that although indicative of an inherent depravity, these two deaths should not be compared to Kürten's later murders as to a child, the death of a friend can be seen as nothing more than an inconsequential passing.


title: Peter Kürten

text: Upon cross-examination, Kürten's defence attorney, Dr. Alex Wehner, did challenge these experts' conclusions, arguing the sheer range of perversions his client had engaged in was tantamount to insanity. However, each doctor and psychiatrist remained adamant as to Kürten being legally sane and responsible for his actions.


title: Peter Kürten

text: In a further attempt to discredit the validity of many of the charges recited at the opening stages of the trial, Wehner also questioned whether the occasional physical inaccuracies of the crimes described in his client's confession equated to Kürten having fabricated at least some of the crimes, thus supporting his contention Kürten possessed a diseased mind. In response, Dr. Berg conceded that sections of Kürten's confessions were false, but argued that the knowledge he possessed of the murder scenes and the wounds inflicted upon the victims left him in no doubt as to his guilt, and that the minor embellishments in his confessions could be attributed to Kürten's narcissistic personality.


title: Peter Kürten

text: The trial lasted ten days. On 22 April, the jury retired to consider their verdict. They deliberated for under two hours before reaching their verdict: Kürten was found guilty and sentenced to death on nine counts of murder. He was also found guilty of seven counts of attempted murder. Kürten displayed no emotion as the sentence was passed, although in his final address to the court, he stated that he now saw his crimes as being "so ghastly that [he did] not want to make any sort of excuse for them".