Who's Who In The Cathar War:   Fulk of Marseille (Folquet de Marselha, Folquet de Marseille) also Folc, Foulques, and Folquet (b. circa 1150 - d. 25 December 1231)

Fulk came from a Genoese merchant family in Marseille. He was also a wealthy citizen with some renoun. A contemporary (John of Garlande) later described him as "renowned on account of his spouse, his progeny, and his home." A troubadour, and known as Folquet, he began composing songs in the 1170s and was known to Raymond Geoffrey II of Marseille, Richard the Lionheart, Raymond V of Toulouse, Raymond-Roger of Foix, Alfonso II of Aragon and William VIII of Montpellier.

His love songs were lauded by Dante. There are 14 surviving cansos, one tenson, a lament, an invective, three crusading songs and one religious song (although its authorship is disputed). Like other troubadours, he was credited by biographies of the Troubadours with having conducted love affairs with noblewomen about whom he sang (and with causing William VIII of Montpellier to divorce his wife, Eudocia Comnena).

Folquet's life changed around 1195 when he renounced his former ways and abandoned his family for the Catholic Church. He joined the Cistercian Order and entered the monastery of Thoronet (Var, France). He placed his wife and two sons in monastic institutions as well.

He soon rose in prominence as a Cistercian and was elected abbot of Thoronet. As abbot he helped found the sister house of Géménos to house women, possibly including his abandoned wife.

A few years later Papal legates - fellow Cistercians - deposed the Bishop of Toulouse, Raymond (Ramon) de Rabastens, and were probably instrumental in arranging Folquet's nomination for the position in 1205.

As Bishop of Toulouse, Folquet (now referred to as Fulk, sometimes Fulk of Toulouse (Folquet de Tolosa, Foulques de Toulouse) took an active role in combating Catharism, the favoured religion of the area. Throughout his Episcopal career he sought to encourage Catholic religious enthusiasm and suppress other forms of Christianity (primarily Cathar and Waldensian). In 1206 he created what would later become the convent of Prouille to offer women a religious community that would rival similar existing nearby Cathar institutions.

When a preaching mission led by his fellow Cistercians failed to make any impression other than attracting popular derision, he participated in a preaching mission led by Bishop Diego of Osma. He continued to support this new form of preaching after Bishop Diego's death by supporting Diego's successor Dominic de Guzmán (later Saint Dominic) and his followers, eventually allotting them property and a portion of the tithes of Toulouse to ensure their continued success. (They soon developed into the Dominican Order and Prouille became a Dominican convent).

Because of his abrasive style, Bishop Folk had tumultuous relations with his diocese, exacerbated by his support of the Cathar Crusade, widely perceived then as now as a war of aggression against Toulouse and the whole region - then independent but annexed to France when the aggression proved successful.

Hated by Raymond VI, Count of Toulouse and by many Toulousains he abandoned Toulouse on 2 April 1211, after the crusaders laid siege to Lavaur. Soon afterwards he instructed all clerics to leave the city of Toulouse.

He was present at the siege of Lavaur in April-May 1211, which ended in a massacre; he then travelled north to France, where he preached the Cathar Crusade alongside a fellow Cistercian Guy of les Vaux-de-Cernay. He then returned to the south, participating in the Council of Pamiers in November 1212, in the Council of Lavaur in January 1213, in the meeting with King Peter II of Aragon on 14 January 1213. He was present at the Battle of Muret on 12 September 1213, and at the Council of Montpellier in January 1215. There he was instructed by the Papal legate, Peter of Benevento, to take possession of the Château Narbonnais, the Count's residence, at Toulouse and so returned to the city in February 1215.

In July 1215 Folk issued a diocesan letter instituting Dominic's brotherhood of preachers which became the Domincan Order. In November 1215 he and Dominic, with Guy of Montfort, attended the Fourth Lateran Council.

Toulousains rebelled in August 1216 against Simon IV de Montfort, their new lord according to the Fourth Lateran Council. Foulques' attempted settlement led to further violence. He tried to relinquish his position but his requests to the pope were declined.

In October 1217, when Simon de Montfort was besieging Toulouse, he sent a group of sympathisers to Paris to plead for the help of the French king, Philippe-Auguste. This group included Fulk as well as Simon's wife, the countess Alix de Montmorency. They returned in May 1218, bringing a party of new Crusaders including Amaury de Craon.

Fulk spent much of the following decade outside his diocese, assisting the crusading army and the Church's attempts to subdue the region. He was at the Council of Sens in 1223.

After the Peace of Paris ended the Cathar Crusade in 1229, Fulk returned to Toulouse and began to construct further institutions - in addition to the Dominican Inquisition - designed to control the region and extirpate the Cathars. He helped to create the University of Toulouse and administered an Episcopal Inquisition.

He died in 1231 and was buried, beside the tomb of William VII of Montpellier, at the Cistercian abbey of Grandselves, near Toulouse, where his sons, Ildefonsus and Petrus had been abbots.

More on Folquet de Marseille the Troubadour

Texts of Folquet's poems (in Occitan)