Simon de Montfort Earl Of Leicester

  General Notes:

In 1199, while taking part in a tournament at Ecry-sur-Aisne, he heard Fulk of Neuilly preaching the crusade, and in the company of Count Thibaud de Champagne, he took the cross. The crusade soon fell under Venetian control, and was diverted to Zara on the Adriatic Sea. Pope Innocent III had specifically warned the Crusaders not to attack fellow Christians; Simon tried to reassure the citizens of Zara that there would be no attack, but nevertheless, the city was sacked in 1202. Simon did not participate in this action and was one of its most outspoken critics. He and his associates, including Abbot Guy of Vaux-de-Cernay, soon left the Crusade altogether from Zara and travelled to King Emico of Hungary's territory. Afterwards, under Venetian guidance, the Crusaders sacked the city of Constantinople - the main trading rival to Venice.

His mother was the eldest daughter of Robert de Beaumont, 3rd Earl of Leicester. After the death of her brother Robert de Beaumont, 4th Earl of Leicester, without children in 1204, she inherited half of his estates, and a claim to the Earldom of Leicester. The division of the estates was effected early in 1207, by which the rights to the Earldom were assigned to Amicia and Simon. However, King John took possession of the lands himself in February 1207, and confiscated its revenues. Later, in 1215, the lands were passed into the hands of Simon's cousin, Ranulph de Meschines, 4th Earl of Chester.

Simon remained on his estates in France, where in 1209, he was made captain-general of the French forces in the Albigensian Crusade. Simon was rewarded with the territory conquered from Raymond VI of Toulouse. He became notorious and feared for his extreme cruelty, massacring whole towns, and for his "treachery, harshness, and bad faith." In 1210 he burned 140 Cathars in the village of Minerve who refused to give up their faith. In another widely reported incident, prior to the sack of the village of Lastours, he brought prisoners from the nearby village of Bram and had their eyes gouged out and their ears, noses and lips cut off. One prisoner, left with a single good eye, led them into the village as a (sadly, unsuccessful) warning.

He was a man of extreme religious orthodoxy, deeply committed to the Dominican order and the suppression of heresy. In 1213 he defeated Peter of Aragon at the Battle of Muret. The Albigensians were now crushed, but Simon carried on the campaign as a war of conquest, being appointed lord over all the newly-acquired territory as Count of Toulouse and Duke of Narbonne (1215). He spent two years in warfare in many parts of Raymond's former territories; he besieged Beaucaire, which had been taken by Raymond VII of Toulouse, from 6 June 1216 to 24 August 1216.

Raymond spent most of this period in Aragon, but corresponded with sympathisers in Toulouse. There were rumours that he was on his way to Toulouse in September 1216. Abandoning the siege of Beaucaire, Simon responded with a partial sacking of Toulouse, perhaps intended as punishment of the citizens. Raymond actually returned to take possession of Toulouse in October 1217. Simon hastened to besiege the city, meanwhile sending his wife, Alix de Montmorency, with Bishop Foulques of Toulouse and others, to the French court to plead for support. After maintaining the siege for nine months Simon was killed on 25 June 1218 while combating a sally by the besieged. His head was smashed by a stone from a mangonel, operated, according to the most detailed source, by donas e tozas e mulhers ("ladies, girls and women") of Toulouse. He was buried in the Cathedral of Saint-Nazaire at Carcassonne.

Simon left three sons: his French estates passed to his eldest son, Amaury de Montfort, while his younger son, Simon, eventually gained possession of the Earldom of Leicester and played a major role in the reign of Henry III. Another son, Guy, was married to Petronille, Countess of Bigorre, on 6 November 1216, but died at the siege of Castelnaudary on 20 July 1220. His daughter, Petronilla, became an abbess at the Cistercian nunnery of St. Antoine's. Another daughter, Amicia, founded the nunnery at Montargis and died there in 1252