The Albigensian Crusade by Jonathan Sumption

The Albigensian Crusade Reviews

• 
  Adam

  Would've been five stars if not for the constant disparagement of the chansons de geste.
  
  An absolutely wild war with every kind of medieval depravation you can think of. Siege warfare was coming into its own but no one had time for sieges but also no one stored enough food to withstand a siege for long.
• 
  Laura

  Dnf - next visit to SW France.
• 
  Ton

  The Cathar region of France (roughly the region between the Pyrenees and the line Montpellier-Albi-Montauban) still has the Cathar cross on prominent display, but these days it’s more for the benefit of the tourists than because of heretical tendencies amongst the locals. The Cathars were followers of a cult deemed heretical by the Roman Catholic church; it was essentially a harmless sect, which had taken root in the region amongst all layers of the population, but it was also a sect which was very persistent in adhering to its crede. In the end they had to be persecuted, because the Catholic preachers and papal legates could not get a grip on them, nor make them see the error of their ways. We do not really know a lot about the Cathars’ religious theory, since most of it was either suppressed or mangled by the Inquisitions outsiders’ view. What does seem certain is that the Cathars’ core tenet was that the world was created by the devil (if God was all-powerful, why was there evil in the world? The Cathars reasoned because God had no power there), and therefore it was to be rejected at all costs. According to a heretic’s testimony before the Inquisition: God is perfect; nothing in the world is perfect; therefore nothing in the world was made by God. […] The one, the good God, made the invisible world, while the other, the evil God, made the visible one. All physical matter was tainted (this included basics like sustenance and sex, even between spouses), and the Cathars even renounced the Old Testament and the sacraments, and therefore had no need for a clergy or ministry consecrated by sacrament. They led a life of abstinence, and those who were singularly ascetic were admitted to the rank of ‘Perfects’ and offered the consolamentum. Cathar bishops were appointed, amongst others, to Agen, Toulouse and Carcassonne, but these were essentially leaders by example.
  
  This book is about the wars that were fought in the region, wars that were ostensibly devoted to removing the heresy of the Cathars, but which very swiftly became wars of aggression and conquest. The reason for the crusade was the murder of a papal legate, by a man formerly in the employ of Raymond VI, count of Toulouse. It’s not certain that Raymond was involved in this murder, but he was quickly identified as the main culprit by the chief legate Arnald-Amaury, the abbot of Citeaux. Arnald-Amaury was appointed by Innocent III, the most powerful pope of the Middle Ages, as a legate to investigate the heresy and to weed it out; but whereas Innocent was by temperament a lawyer and a politician, Arnald-Amaury was far more jaded, and used whatever methods he could to realize his goals. This frequently brought him in trouble with Innocent, who appointed no less than seven legates to this region during the crusade of his pontificate.
  Arnald-Amaury’s main asset was Simon de Montfort (father of the Simon de Montfort who challenged Henry III of England), a fanatical but able fortune-seeker enticed by the prospects of a holy war in the south of France. Simon used the crusade which was preached to carve out a territory of his own (and to burn numerous Cathars), but because of that, the crusade became a war of conquest. It’s main intended victim was Raymond VI, Count of Toulouse, whom Arnald-Amaury would not trust if he could help it (he was reprimanded by Innocent on several occasions). Simon sought to displace Raymond, but in the end the pope would not have it, and neither would the local populace, who never lost a chance to defy Simon if they thought they could get away with it. Simon was eventually killed in the siege of Toulouse. The wars he fought were bitter and cruel; they were also controversial, as he became more and more autocratic, painting the crusade as a tool for his own drive to win himself a lordship. Arnald-Amaury aided him in this, because he realized he needed Simon to spearhead the crusade if it was ever to eradicate the Cathar heresy.
  In the end Catharism was ended when the kings of France (Louis VIII, and his sons Louis IX and Alphonse of Poitiers) decided to take the county of Toulouse into their own hands (Alphonse was married to the last heir of the House of Toulouse), and because of the efforts of the Inquisition, which was founded to investigate claims of Cathar heresy.
  
  This book covers all the main points in lots of detail. Sumption has an enticing style, and doesn’t bog the narrative down with lots of notes and scholarly debate. What remains is a clear picture of a rich region beset by a war of conquest masquerading as a crusade, and the effects it had for both the region and its identity. Highly recommended for anyone interested in the subject.
  
• 
  Simon Mcleish

  Originally published on my blog
  here in November 2000.
  
  Of all the facets of medieval culture which differ from their modern equivalents, the one which is the most difficult to understand is the most important. The Catholic church and western European culture were literally synonymous - with the name Christendom - and the church was totally dominant in every area of life. One of the most important rights that many people today take completely for granted - and I am aware that it is not one which everybody possesses - is freedom of religion, not just the freedom to practice whatever religion chosen, but to practise no religion at all. This right is so familiar to most of us that we hardly realise that we practise it. And yet, it would have been completely incomprehensible to a medieval peasant.
  
  This means that the Albigensian Crusade, which seems to us to be a great crime, was at the time considered not only desirable but absolutely necessary. To be a heretic, defying the church, was to be denying the fundamental core of society, was to be attempting to destroy society completely. Heresy was an illness which had to be eradicated, whatever the cost.
  
  Sumption's book is a fairly direct description, as much as one is possible, of the campaigns which make up the crusade. The qualification is due not just to the usual obscurity of medieval chronicle, but because the contemporary and near contemporary histories sometimes contradict each other irreconcilably; history as propaganda is not a new idea. It is difficult to go beyond this kind of straightforward account; descriptions of the beliefs of the Cathars are even more partisan. Orthodox writers tended to ascribe similar beliefs and practices to just about every group of heretics. About all that can be said with any certainty is that they were dualists (with God and the devil as fundamentally equal opponents) who tended to reject the real world as evil, which meant in practice extreme asceticism and the embracing of martyrdom and suicide by the famous Cathar adepts known as Perfects.
  
  This is a different kind of history from that which makes up
  Montaillou, also about the Cathars; that is a reconstruction of medieval village life from the records of the Inquisition, which first began its terrible work in the wake of the Crusade. As far as the religious and political statements in these records are concerned, they cannot be trusted because they are shaped by what the orthodox expected to hear and because they were extracted by physical or psychological pressure. Clearly, though, when they talk of everyday things as familiar to the inquisitors as to their victims, they will be far more trustworthy.
  
  The religious element to their lives did not mean that the motives of those who fought on either side of the war were pure. There was much that could be gained or lost materially, for the crusaders had been promised the lands of dispossessed heretics. The motivation of greed adds to the reasons why the modern viewpoint tends to sympathise with the Cathars rather than the crusaders. However, it is also a reason why the events of the Crusade are surprisingly obscure, because it motivated a lot of behind the scenes political manoeuvrings, particularly as the main driving force behind the military campaigns was the will of Pope Innocent III, who kept on trying to control what was happening around Toulouse from weeks' journey away.
  
  Sumption's concentration on the overt military activity of the Crusade is understandable, but does make the book both rather dry and superficial. The medieval mind remains obscure, the personalities involved hardly come alive, by comparison with many of those who took part in the Crusades in the Holy Land. It is difficult to see how a different book could have been produced based on the available resources. Sumption is not to blame; he has at least shed light on what would be interesting to know.
• 
  Jason Vanhee

  Mainly focused on the political aspects of the French conquest of Languedoc, this book only glances at the Cathars themselves. It's a good account of those political maneuvers but I do wish it balanced the religious aspects better.
• 
  Czarny Pies

  Ce petit bijou sur la Croisade des albigeois a le même longueur et le même brio qu'un roman de la série des "rois maudits" de Maurice Druon. C'est une vraie régale pour quiconque qui adore les histoires des luttes dynastiques de la France moyenâgeuse.
• 
  Zechy

  Good book. Wish there was more.
• 
  Douglas Berry

  It's funny how some things never change. Playing fantasy role-playing games as a teenager got me into studying history. Now, reading a supplement for the Ars Magica system has led me to learn about a part of history I had only the vaguest knowledge of before.
  
  The Cathars were one of the last great Gnostic movements in the Western Church. Rejecting the material world as the corrupt work of the Devil, Cathars were virulently anti-clergy and attracted numerous followers in Provance. Which, at the time, was a patchwork of independent counties and free cities that were far more tolerant of heresy than the French nobles of the north.
  
  Sumpton does a great of juggling the complex web of nobles, churchmen, lay leaders, and all the rest involved in a conflict that quickly went from a religious crusade to a personal crusade by Simon du Montfort to defeat Raymond VI, Count of Toulouse and build a personal empire. Montfort is continually frustrated by the harsh rules of feudal warfare, such as troops only owing 40 days service. Time and again, Montfort would win great victories only to see rebellions break out when his armies went home.
  
  This was a war of great savagery Starting with the massacre at Béziers in 1209, neither side gave much quarter. Promises were broken, Clerics were lynched and the crusaders simply made up accusations against Provençal nobles as an excuse to seize castles.
  
  The book is dense but very readable. There are maps where maps are needed, although I would have liked the large area map at the back to have been at the front for easy reference. The most important thing, I learned a great deal from reading this amazing history.
• 
  Carl Muller

  It took me two weeks to read it due to the many detail in the book. Brilliant. Only a legal mind could have done that.
  Credit to Jonathan Sumption for writing such a good book on such a bad part of our history. It is a shame that the Catholic church could have done so much damage to people that differed with them. From that I understand why they murdered so many people (Jews in mostly Europe, and also indigenous people in the countries where they send missionaries).
  I also understand the origins of the holocaust. The Catholic church.
• 
  Daniel B-G

  I didn't manage to finish this, not because it was bad, but because I was getting upset with the injustice. The provence region is one of the most deprived in modern France. At the opening of this book it was one of the wealthiest. The actions in this book are the pivot that shifts it from one to the other. It's appalling, and all down to greedy, intransigent crusaders.
• 
  Adam Windsor

  An eminently readable and informative account of the rise and subsequent suppression of the Cathar faith in Languedoc: the tenets of the faith, the conditions that allowed it to flourish there, and the careers of its principle champions and enemies through decades of war and inquisition.
• 
  Diane James

  Valuable book for understanding the origin and spread of the Cathars in the Languedoc in 12th and 13th century France. The crusade was followed by the inquisition which obliterated the Cathars where the military campaigns failed. Very readable and engrossing history.
• 
  Pastor Ben

  He takes what is likely a very confusing event in history and describes it in clarifying detail. I enjoyed it.
• 
  Overbooked ✎

  3.5 stars
  
  In a society which regarded religion as the foundation of secular life, their attitude is not surprising. A mediaeval community was defined as much by its religion as by its political allegiance or geographical cohesion. ‘Populus et christianitas una est‚’ declared a treaty concluded by the ninth-century emperor Charles the Bald. His maxim was applied far beyond the realms of imperial diplomacy. An unbeliever could not belong to a Christian society; he was an alien. And far graver than the unbeliever was the case of the heretic, who accepted the same revelation as his orthodox neighbour but gave it a different interpretation, distorting and corrupting it, leading simpler men away from their salvation. Heresy was a spreading poison and a community which tolerated it invited God to withdraw his protection.
  
• 
  Elliot Gates

  What an utterly shambolic crusade! I'd never heard of this event prior to picking up this book at a thrift store. The authors style flowed well and the story was easy to follow. Recommended for anyone's who into obscure history.
• 
  Jo O'Donnell

  An excellent history of the decades-long crusade against the Cathars in southern France. Mostly forgotten today save for the (possibly) apocryphal phrase uttered by papal legate Arnaud Amaury when asked how the crusaders, about to storm a town, would be able to tell catholic from heretic?
  
  "Kill them all, God will know His own."
  
  Its density is both bane and boon and more maps would have been useful as the book hops from small town to small town and I was only ever half-sure of where I was at geographically. I'll definitely read more from the author - who nowadays is a judge on the UK's Supreme Court, finishing up the fifth and final volume of his history of the Hundred Years' War, and spends his free time in his French castle, because of course he does.
• 
  Tredyffrin Township Libraries

  "“Repression can destroy a faith; it can also produce dangerous decay in the society that uses it.” These words hold meaningful truths for today’s society, yet they were written about the thirteenth century.
  
  In 1208 there began a crusade against the Cathar and Waldensian heretics of Southern France. In an area known as Occitania, the Roman Catholic Church sought to eliminate dissent while the Northern French king sought to acquire land. While the resulting Albigensian Crusades were considered successful, it lead to many unintended consequences including the disillusionment that paved the way for the Reformation.
  
  Author and Professor Joseph R. Strayer weaves many layers of historical insight to paint the picture of political thinking, papal and clerical back dealing and heroism by the Cathars that makes The Albigensian Crusades an intriguing historical read. This period in history had such significance as to give rise to the Inquisition and unite France in ways that had ripple effects through Napoleon and beyond. Because Strayer avoids an in-depth understanding of the Cathars and Waldensians, he unfortunately is almost indifferent to the suffering of the hundreds of thousands of peaceful citizens slaughtered and tortured. Despite this, The Albigensian Crusades is a must read for anyone interested in historical or modern day Southern France."