What their religious tenets were,
we shall never know. With the Vaudois, Waldenses, "poor men of
Lyons," they must not be for a moment confounded. Their creed
remains to us only in the calumnies of their enemies. The
confessions in the archives of the Tolosan Inquisition, as elicited
either under torture or fear of torture, deserve no confidence
whatsoever. And as for the licentiousness of their poetry--which has
been alleged as proof of their profligacy--I can only say, that it is
no more licentious than the fabliaux of their French conquerors,
while it is far more delicate and refined. Humanity, at least, has
done justice to the Troubadours of the south; and confessed, even in
the Middle Age, that to them the races of the north owed grace of
expression, delicacy of sentiment, and that respect for women which
soon was named chivalry; which looks on woman, not with suspicion and
contempt, but with trust and adoration; and is not ashamed to obey
her as "mistress," instead of treating her as a slave.
But these Albigenses must have had something in their hearts for
which it was worth while to die.
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