Toulouse
City on the Garonne, seat of the counts of Toulouse, in a region where the church fought the Albigensians as heretics. Dominic’s first community formed here in 1215, and Dominican friars of its convent later acted as papal inquisitors.
Toulouse lies on the river Garonne in the south of France. Jordan of Saxony says that when Dominic first passed through, the people of the region had long been heretics (Jordan of Saxony, Libellus 14–15). A citizen, Peter Seila, gave Dominic houses near the Narbonne castle in 1215, and the next year the brothers received the church of Saint Romanus in the city (Jordan of Saxony, Libellus 38, 44). A friar of that convent, William Pelhisson, records that the pope later made two of its members inquisitors against heretics in the dioceses of Toulouse and Cahors (William Pelhisson, Chronicle p. 13), and that when the consuls drove the friars out of the city the pope had the count of Toulouse bring them back (William Pelhisson, Chronicle pp. 38–41). See Dominic Founds the Order of Preachers and the Papal Inquisition Is Established.
What happened here
- 1209 to 1229, firm dateThe Albigensian Crusade
After a papal legate is murdered, Innocent III calls for arms against the count of Toulouse and the heretics of his lands. Crusaders sack Béziers in 1209, and twenty years of war end with the count’s heir submitting to the church and the French crown.
- 22 December 1216, firm dateDominic Founds the Order of Preachers
Dominic, a Spanish canon who had spent nearly ten years preaching against heresy in southern France, gathers a community at Toulouse. Pope Honorius III confirms it in December 1216, and within five years its friars are in Paris, Bologna and Spain.
- 1231, firm dateThe Papal Inquisition Is Established
Gregory IX issues statutes against heretics and commissions Dominican friars to seek them out, try them and hand the unrepentant to the secular power. Papal inquisitors begin work at Toulouse; in 1252 Innocent IV orders the cities of northern Italy to force confessions.