Simon de Montfort's Shield (13th century) in Westminster Abbey - Simon de Montfort, whose name now denotes intolerance and cruelty, was initially a minor player in the Albigensian Crusade but seems unique as he was an unrelenting champion of the rights of the Church - just as long as these did not obstruct his own ends - who was distrusted equally by the Pope on whose behalf he had fought and by the King of France. But it was nevertheless Simon contemptuously nicknamed "The Buzzard" who had risen from his small and debt-ridden estates at distant Montfort d'Amaury and done most to save the Faith in the degenerate south. Even the Papal legates, much as they disliked him, knew it had been his military genius alone which had broken the stiff-necked Occitan nobility. Had Pope Innocent himself, who had launched the Crusade, really not known the true nature of the monster he had helped to create? Certainly King Phillip had no wish to have such an ambitious vassal carving out a kingdom for himself in the South and he was well aware that Simon was trying to arrange a marriage settlement between his own daughter and the young King of Aragon. But at Simon's elbow, urging him on, was the bellicose legate, Arnald-Amalric of Citeaux, untiring in his pursuit of heresy and who - as religious leader of the Crusade - bore major responsibility for the infamous slaughter at B憴iers. - ?TopFoto