Henry of Marcy

Henry of Marcy (Latin Henricus de Marsiaco, French Henri de Marcy, † January 1, 1189 in Arras ) was a Cistercian and cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church. He introduced in 1181 the so-called " Vorkreuzzug " against the Cathars, also called " Albigenses " in southern France ( Occitania ) to.

Life

Heinrich came from the lord family of Marcy, located near the Cluny Abbey. 1155 he became a monk at the Abbey of Clairvaux Cistercian Brotherhood in was 1160 Abbot Hautecombe and in 1176 finally chosen for the seventh abbot of Clairvaux.

In preparation for the third Lateran Council, Henry was sent in 1178 were accompanied by Cardinal Peter of Pavia to Toulouse, to investigate the circumstances concerning which there spreading heretical beliefs flow of Catharism there. Count Raymond V of Toulouse had requested last year in a letter to the Cistercians for help against heresy in his country. In Toulouse, Heinrich had offered him bishopric, whose city he considered to be the origin of heresy, as well as the management of the abbey Citeaux and thus the leadership of the Cistercian knocked out, the 1145 contributed since the missionary work of St. Bernard the brunt of Katharermission in Occitania. After the excommunication of Roger II Trencavel who had the Bishop of Albi jailed, and a debate with two leading Cathar clergy Henry had advised in a letter to the Pope to intervene militarily against heresy, which for the first time ever the thought of a violent action against the Cathars was formulated. At the Third Lateran Council he was appointed in May 1179 to Cardinal Bishop of Albano. At the head of a small army Henry had returned in 1181 as papal legate by Occitania. With the support of Count Raymond V. He besieged the city of Lavaur, where the two Cathars, who had three years earlier faced him in the debate, had moved. The city had surrendered after only a short time, the two Cathar readily converted to the orthodox church and canons were in Toulouse. Then the army came to an end and the " Vorkreuzzug " against the Albigenses was thus an end, without which he would have taken any serious impact on the political and religious conditions in Occitania. The will to combat the Cathar heresy military remained in the Roman Church, however, exist, and culminated in 1208 in the proclamation of the Albigensian Crusade by Pope Innocent III ..

Together with the Bishop of Paris, Maurice de Sully, Henry had dedicated to the choir and altar of the under construction Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris on May 19, 1182. 1187 the choice he was offered to the Pope, but he renounced this dignity and instead supported the candidacy of Albertus de Morra, who was then elected as Gregory VIII. From this he was sent as legate to Germany where he mediated in the dispute between Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa with the Archbishop of Cologne and at a convened in March 1188 assembly in Mainz called the Emperor and the German aristocracy to the third crusade. On the way to France, he took in Liège by Bishop Rudolf crusade against the silk. In Bonsmoulins failed in November 1188 his attempt to mediate between Philip II of France, Henry II of England and Richard the Lionheart, he also wanted to move to cross acquisition, after which he went back on his way back to Germany. Henry himself was an avid supporter of the crusade ideology, which he formulated in a written treatise. His desire to take part in the Third Crusade to recapture Jerusalem, was prevented by his death in 1189 in Arras. He was buried in the Abbey of Clairvaux.