The poem "Song of the Crusade against the Albigensians" (first half of the 13th century) is the only monument of Old Occitan literature that combines historical narrative and epic. Begun around 1214 by the cleric Guilhem of Tudela, in 1228 the poem was continued by an anonymous poet, consisting of the retinue of Raymond VII, the last count of Toulouse. In 1208, Pope Innocent III called on barons and commoners on a crusade against Albigensian heretics, and in 1209 an army led by papal legate Arno Amory entered the flourishing lands of southern France and began to mercilessly ruin cities and castles, destroying everyone who resisted.