History Of The Crusades Against The Albigenses

This book lends a complete history of the Crusade agains the protestant Albigensians that began in 1207 and lasted for over 40 years, well into the latter Crusades. The Albigensians, or Cathars, were persecuted by the Catholic Church for their heretical views, and forced to convert or be burnt at the stake. It is estimated that well over 20,000 people were killed in the South of France during the long Crusade.

The Cathars and the Albigensian Crusade brings together a rich and diverse range of medieval sources to examine key aspects of the growth of heresy and dissent in southern France in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries and the Church’s response to that threat through the subsequent authorisation of the Albigensian crusade. Aimed at students and scholars alike, the documents it discusses – papal letters, troubadour songs, contemporary chronicles in Latin and the vernacular, and inquisitorial documents – reflect a deeper perception of medieval heresy and the social, political and religious implications of crusading than has hitherto been possible. The reader is introduced to themes which are crucial to our understanding of the medieval world: ideologies of crusading and holy war, the complex nature of Catharism, the Church’s implementation of diverse strategies to counter heresy, the growth of papal inquisition, southern French counter-strategies of resistance and rebellion, and the uses of Latin and the vernacular to express regional and cultural identity. This timely and highly original collection not only brings together previously unexplored and in some cases unedited material, but provides a nuanced and multi-layered view of the religious, social and political dimensions of one of the most infamous conflicts of the High Middle Ages. This book is a valuable resource for all students, teachers and researchers of medieval history and the crusades.

In 1209 Simon of Montfort led a war against the Cathars of Languedoc after Pope Innocent III preached a crusade condemning them as heretics. The suppression of heresy became a pretext for a vicious war that remains largely unstudied as a military conflict. Laurence Marvin here examines the Albigensian Crusade as military and political history rather than religious history and traces these dimensions of the conflict through to Montfort's death in 1218. He shows how Montfort experienced military success in spite of a hostile populace, impossible military targets, armies that dissolved every forty days, and a pope who often failed to support the crusade morally or financially. He also discusses the supposed brutality of the war, why the inhabitants were for so long unsuccessful at defending themselves against it, and its impact on Occitania. This original account will appeal to scholars of medieval France, the Crusades and medieval military history.

This is a reproduction (facsimile) of the original book published in 1826.The attention of the public has been, of late, much directed to the character and sufferings of the Albigensian Christians, and to the principles and conduct of the church of Rome, through whose instigation, and by whose authority, they were persecuted and destroyed. The outlines of those persecutions are sufficiently known, having been presented in the pages of general history; and even their particular details have been minutely depicted by those who have vindicated the cause of the sufferers, and by others who were the witnesses and agents of their sufferings. Yet a history was still wanted which should trace the rise and progress of these calamitous events with truth and precision, and at the same time give such a view of the shifting scenes by which they were attended, as to cause them to make an indelible impression upon the mind. This object has been accomplished by M. Simonde de Sismondi, who has, in his history of the French people, now in the course of publication at Paris, bestowed much pains and research on the subject of the crusades of the Roman church against the Albigenses, and has treated it with so much eloquence and beauty of style, and such a spirit of philosophic (enquiry, as to render it a most interesting episode in that valuable work. The volume here offered to the English reader is an attempt to exhibit that part of M. Sismondi's narrative, with only so much of the general history as may serve for its connexion and illustration. Although, therefore, it is only an extract from a larger work, yet it nevertheless embraces an entire, and, to a considerable degree, an independent subject ; giving a view of a series of interesting events, issuing in a catastrophe, of great importance to the cause of civil and religious liberty, and of lasting influence upon the future destinies of Europe and of the world. It commences with the thirteenth century, and comprises a period of about forty years, detailing the progress in civilization, liberty, and religion, of the fine countries in the south of France, and the destruction of that liberty and civilization, the devastation and ruin of those countries, and the extinction of those early efforts for religious reformation, through the power and policy of the church of Rome. It relates the establishment of the inquisition, and the provisions by which this merciless tribunal was adapted to become, for ages, the grand engine of domination to that ambitious and persecuting power. And it marks the complete establishment of civil and ecclesiastical despotism , by the surrender of all those states, with their rights and liberties, to the dominion and controul of the French monarch, under the direction of the Roman pontiff. When therefore the curtain at last falls upon this sad tragedy, it seems as if the night of ignorance and tyranny had closed upon the nations for ever.

A compelling introduction to the war against the heretics of Languedoc launched in 1209, combined with a description of the political, economic, religious and social conditions of south-western France in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Michael Costen shows why the Cathar heresy came to flourish and how the campaign against it developed into a programme of conquest by which an alliance of church and state finally destroyed the heresy and united the region with the newly expanding French kingdom.