Overview
In the 13th century, a group of heretics in southwest France, the Cathars, became a serious threat to the Catholic church. In several waves of repression, thousands of Cathars were killed. Yet so ardent was their faith that, early in the next century, the Cathars rose one last time. Using the breathtakingly detailed and uniquely extant documentation from this period, and drawing on his intimate knowledge of the last Cathars' tracks and hiding places, many of which survive to this day, Rene Weis tells the full story of this gripping historical episode.
Full Product Details
Author: Rene Weis
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Imprint: Penguin Books Ltd
Dimensions:
Width: 12.90cm
, Height: 3.50cm
, Length: 19.80cm
Weight: 0.500kg
ISBN: 9780140276695
ISBN 10: 0140276696
Pages: 528
Publication Date: 02 August 2001
Audience:
General/trade
,
General
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: Manufactured on demand
We will order this item for you from a manufactured on demand supplier.
Reviews
There can be fewer better guides than this beautiful book, which lets an almost forgotten people, even through the filter of time and the Inquisition, speak for themselves. -- The Washington Post Book World <br> In a feat of inspired scholarship, Weis transports us back to that world, conveying all of the high drama of ecclesiastical interrogations, covert ceremonies, and fiery martyrdom. . . . A book that will long haunt its readers. -- Booklist<br> <br> This book reanimates the real world of the Cathars of seven hundred years ago in a way that is fresh, utterly modern, and pulsates with life. -Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie, author of Montaillou <br> <br> It succeeds enthrallingly . . . a moving evocation of an almost inconceivable faith. -- The Times (London)
Montaillou, in south-west France, must be the best-documented medieval village in Europe. The detailed reports on life in this small rural community, made by the Inquisition in the 13th and 14th centuries, are preserved in the Vatican (saved there from destruction during the French Revolution) and hold up for us a moment crystallized in time. Over 20 years ago, the renowned social historian Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie brought us masterful depiction of the village and its inhabitants; in this book Weis examines Montaillou afresh in The Yellow Cross. The Story of the Last Cathars, 1290-1329. The Cathars were a group of heretics who flourished in the Occitan in the 13th century, amounting to what was probably the most serious internal threat to the Catholic Church before the advent of Protestanism. They were dualists, who held that the soul was divine and the body sinful. They refused to accept, for example, that the bread and wine used during the sacrament literally was Christ's flesh and blood because they could not accept that Christ's flesh and blood could be tainted by coming into contact with a sinner's profane body. In a landscape as desloate as it is beautiful it is no wonder the Cathars sought salvation with such passion, defying church and society to follow their beliefs. But these people were no saints. As well as deliverance, they also sought wealth, power, and sex. The story Weis tells, that of the last Cathars' brief rise and fall, is one of lust, betrayel and murder. The complicated cast of characters includes a sexually insatiable double-dealing priest, an avaricious shepherd-turned-Perfect (a Cathar priest) who redeemed himself in captivity by refusing to recant or inform, and a self-appointed undercover agent seeking to avenge his mother's death. Weis's account combines scholarship with hands-on detection, and the result is a fascinating window onto a world very distant from our own. Reviewed by Lucy Moore (Kirkus UK)
Author Information
Rene Weis was born in 1953. He is Professor of English Literature at UCL and the author of Criminal Justice- The True Story of Edith Thompson, first published in 1988 to critical acclaim.
