The Cathars and the Albigensian Crusade: A Sourcebook

by Catherine E. Léglu (Editor), Rebecca Rist (Editor), Claire Taylor (Editor)

This book 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.

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 the 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 study 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.

Genres: History, Nonfiction

242 pages, Paperback

First published November 12, 2013

About the author

I am a medievalist specialising in Occitan and French literature, and currently Director of the University of Reading's Graduate Centre for Medieval Studies.

I am on the international committee of the 'Association internationale d'éudes occitanes' (AIEO)

I am a specialist in medieval French and Occitan literature. My PhD was in the satirical tradition of troubadour poetry. I have published on Old Occitan satirical and moralising verse, Old French lyric poetry (pastourelle and chansons de toile), and Middle French romance and didactic texts. My recent research has been on issues of mulitilingualism in French, Occitan and Catalan literature, as well as on the vernacular translation and adaptation of Latin didactic texts (e.g. Middle French versions of Valerius Maximus' Facta et dicta memorabilia). My current project, funded by the Leverhulme Trust (2011-13) is an edition of the Occitan version of a fourteenth-century universal history told largely through the medium of genealogies and images (British Library Egerton 1500), find out more by visiting the egerton 1500 blog

I also teach modern French Language, French for Managers, French cinema, and the cinematic adaptations of literary texts.