The History of the Albigensian Crusade: Peter of les Vaux-de-Cernay's `Historia Albigensis'

All that relates to heretical opinions is presented in Wakefield's Heresies of the High Middle Ages, so I wasted my money on this book that contains a majority of details that don't interest me, but I know a man who very much appreciates this book because he is an enthusiast of the history of the Middle Ages and of Occitania/Languedoc.

Book as described. Thank you.

This book is a translation of a monks latin work on the albigensian crusade (launched 1209). It was actually written during the crusade (1212-1218). It has been translated beautifully and the authors has included many interesting notes about the accuracy of the monks work. If you would like to learns something about the albigensian crusade this book is great as it contains a rather detailed first/second-hand description of the events that led to the crusade as well as the crusade itself. The monk is rather prejudiced (he's a chatholic and the target of the crusade are heretics) but that only add color to the text.The book is rather hard to read as the monk style of writing is very compact - very much information in little space - not many superfluous words or sentences.

You'd think that an account of the Crusade written by a totally biased young priest would be boring. Not at all. He manages to avoid the concept that it's actually rather brutal to set Christian onto Christian, promising their fighters the same heavenly benefits to stay in France and kill Christians as to travel to the Holy Land and kill Saracens. Holy War?Because of his bias, we see every brutality performed by the Crusaders as totally justified and described glowingly. On the other hand he has no problems describing the atrocities performed by the Cathars and their supporters, who of course are totally wrong in his eyes. The book goes into minute detail chronicling every small incident, which added incredible insight to my knowledge of the campaign. On the other hand his account of major incidents is revealing. The massacre at Beziers covers four pages of the book; he dismisses the actual atrocity with 'Astonishingly they captured the city inside an hour. What more? They entered it immediately, killed almost all the inhabitants from the youngest to the oldest and set fire to the city.' He describes the inhabitants as 'shameless dogs'.The book is scholarly, with a length introduction, copious footnotes and appendices. The print size is small but the wealth of detail more than compensates.

This is your primary source.

One of the core classics in the study of the Cathar religion, tradition, and the times in which the Cathar flourished,a n important source for all students of the subject

will help with the course.

Ha sido tal y como se publicaba en el anuncio. Estoy completamente satisfecho. Perfectamente recomendable para aquellos que se encuentren indecisos.