THE ALBIGENSIAN CRUSADE

The first US edition of an essential account of the Albigensian wars and the medieval cultural conflicts they embodied.

The Cathars (nicknamed Albigensians after the town of Albi, a stronghold for the cult) were a sect that broke away from Catholicism, adopting a dualist theology in which the earth and all matter were believed to have been the creation of the Devil. Theological differences, however, were not the only cause for the rapid rise of the Cathars in the 12th century. British historian Sumption (Trial by Fire, not reviewed) evokes the intense local cultures that existed within the boundaries of present-day France: the southern region of Languedoc, for example, bore less cultural kinship with northern France than Germany did. By the 13th century, however, the courtly and elegant society that produced the great troubadour poets was crumbling, lacking a central authority or secure alliances among the various noble households. The Cathars found a receptive audience for their ascetic and anti-authoritarian doctrines among the peasants and artisans of the small towns in the region, thereby provoking a furious reaction from the Vatican. Sumption handles the drama of these events with real flair, vividly recounting the murders and machinations that followed the Church’s initial salvos, the escalation of the campaign to suppress the heretics into a full-scale crusade, and the remarkable career of the opportunist crusader Simon de Montfort. The Church-sponsored armies waged a successful initial campaign against the poorly equipped and impoverished Albigensians, but antagonisms among the southern nobility continued to smolder, culminating in a battle between Montfort and his archrival, Raymond VI of Foix. Sumption deftly integrates the underlying social conditions into his narrative and succeeds in making it clear that, without diminishing the extraordinary events or personalities involved, the real significance of the Crusade lay in the lasting impact it had on the lives of ordinary people.

A vivid, concise recounting of a pivotal era in medieval history. (11 maps)