Overview
Believing in a radical separation of good and evil, the heretical medieval Cathar sect separated themselves from the rest of the world. The full power of the Church was unleashed against these heretics, called the Albigensian Crusade. This work recreates medieval Languedoc and the array of characters who died for their beliefs under the hot Provencal sun. It discusses the way the Crusade and its legacy turned and twisted for over 100 years. It focuses on the personalities on both sides, their motivations and objectives, creating for the modern reader an impression of the powerful beliefs that drove persecutor and victim. The Albigensian Crusade and the heresy it sought to suppress were of great significance in medieval Europe.
Full Product Details
Author: Aubrey Burl
Publisher: The History Press Ltd
Imprint: Sutton Publishing Ltd
Dimensions:
Width: 15.60cm
, Height: 3.20cm
, Length: 23.40cm
Weight: 0.676kg
ISBN: 9780750925723
ISBN 10: 0750925728
Pages: 224
Publication Date: 01 October 2007
Audience:
General/trade
,
General
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: Temporarily unavailable
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Reviews
It is one of the world's great ironies that Christianity, the religion of peace and love, has been directly responsible for so many dreadful pogroms and massacres. The massacre of the 13th-century Cathar heretics - the so-called 'perfect ones' - was one of the bloodiest. It was in Languedoc, in France, that a sect grew up which believed in two Gods, one good, one evil, and refused to accept the legend of the crucifixion. The Catholic Church first tried to persuade them to return to conventional belief, then on the orders of Pope Innocent III endeavoured simply to wipe them out. Naturally, with the whole force of the Armies of Christ in support, the Church succeeded. The whole of the region was sacked and reduced to ruin by a fanatical army that annihilated whole towns and villages and their populations - Beziers, Casseneuil, Moissac.... There are some heroes, but many more villains in this story, from Simon de Montfort, a master persecutor and murderer, to the common soldiers who carried out his orders. The author brings the participants in the struggle brilliantly to life - many of them women, including Beatrice of Planisolles, a sort of Joan of Arc before her time, and (on the other side) de Montford's wife, Alice de Montmorency. Then there is the aid given by the Virgin Mary, who despite the fact that she had died over a thousand years previously, suddenly appeared on the scene. One of the triumphs of the book is Burl's wonderful depiction of the Languedoc landscape, so peaceful and beautiful that it is almost impossible to conceive the horrors inflicted on it and its people by the warring Christian sects of 800 years ago. (Kirkus UK)
