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Massacre at Montségur: A History of the Albigensian Crusade
In 1208 Pope Innocent III called for a Crusade - this time against a country of fellow Christians. The new enemy: Raymond VI, Count of Toulouse, one of the greatest princes in Christendom, premier baron of all the territories in southern France where the langue d'oc was spoken. Thus began the Albigensian Crusade, named after the town of Albi. It culminated in 1244 at the mountain fortress of Montségur with the massacre of the Cathars, or "pure ones" - a faith more ancient than Catholicism. At stake was not only the growth of this rival religion right in the heart of the Catholic Church's territory, but also the very survival of the Languedoc itself as an autonomous and independent region of France.
429 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1959
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About the author
Zoé Oldenbourg
39 books31 followersZoé Oldenbourg (Russian: Зоя Серге́евна Ольденбург) (March 31, 1916–November 8, 2002) was a Russian-born French historian and novelist who specialized in medieval French history, in particular the Crusades and Cathars.
She was born in Petrograd, Russia into a family of scholars and historians. Her father Sergei was a journalist and historian, her mother Ada Starynkevich was a mathematician, and her grandfather Sergei was the permanent secretary of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Saint Petersburg.Her early childhood was spent among the privations of the Russian revolutionary period and the first years of Communism. Her father fled the country and established himself as a journalist in Paris.
With her family, she emigrated to Paris in 1925 at the age of nine and graduated from the Lycée Molière in 1934 with her Baccalauréat diploma. She went on to study at the Sorbonne and then she studied painting at the Académie Ranson. In 1938 she spent a year in England and studied theology. During World War II she supported herself by hand-painting scarves.
She was encouraged by her father to write and she completed her first work, a novel, Argiles et cendres in 1946. Although she wrote her first works in Russian, as an adult she wrote almost exclusively in French.
She married Heinric Idalovici in 1948 and had two children, Olaf and Marie-Agathe.
She combined a genius for scholarship and a deep feeling for the Middle Ages in her historical novels. The World is Not Enough, a vast panorama of the twelfth century immediately put her in the ranks of the foremost historical novelists. Her second, The Cornerstone, won her the Prix Femina and was a Book-of-the-Month Club selection in America. Other works include The Awakened, The Chains of Love, Massacre at Montsegur, Destiny of Fire, Cities of the Flesh, and Catherine the Great, a Literary Guild selection. In The Crusades, Zoe Oldenbourg returned to the Middle Ages she knew and loved so well.
She won the Prix Femina for her 1953 novel La Pierre Angulaire.
She was born in Petrograd, Russia into a family of scholars and historians. Her father Sergei was a journalist and historian, her mother Ada Starynkevich was a mathematician, and her grandfather Sergei was the permanent secretary of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Saint Petersburg.Her early childhood was spent among the privations of the Russian revolutionary period and the first years of Communism. Her father fled the country and established himself as a journalist in Paris.
With her family, she emigrated to Paris in 1925 at the age of nine and graduated from the Lycée Molière in 1934 with her Baccalauréat diploma. She went on to study at the Sorbonne and then she studied painting at the Académie Ranson. In 1938 she spent a year in England and studied theology. During World War II she supported herself by hand-painting scarves.
She was encouraged by her father to write and she completed her first work, a novel, Argiles et cendres in 1946. Although she wrote her first works in Russian, as an adult she wrote almost exclusively in French.
She married Heinric Idalovici in 1948 and had two children, Olaf and Marie-Agathe.
She combined a genius for scholarship and a deep feeling for the Middle Ages in her historical novels. The World is Not Enough, a vast panorama of the twelfth century immediately put her in the ranks of the foremost historical novelists. Her second, The Cornerstone, won her the Prix Femina and was a Book-of-the-Month Club selection in America. Other works include The Awakened, The Chains of Love, Massacre at Montsegur, Destiny of Fire, Cities of the Flesh, and Catherine the Great, a Literary Guild selection. In The Crusades, Zoe Oldenbourg returned to the Middle Ages she knew and loved so well.
She won the Prix Femina for her 1953 novel La Pierre Angulaire.
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Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews
June 17, 2025
Friendly reminder that the Catholic Church was and is an absolute abomination of an organization:
“Before the Albigensian Crusade and the inquisition, bishops and abbots still raised their voices in protest against the burning of heretics, and preached compassion towards such strayed brethren. In the thirteen century, however, St Thomas Aquinas justified such autos-da-fé in terms that are ill-suited to any Christian. Excesses that could previously be attributed to ignorance or the brutal mores of the period were now given the stamp of approval, consecrated ex cathedra theologica by one of the greatest philosophers of Christianity. This fact is too serious to be minimized. From the thirteenth century onwards we no longer find saint or doctor in the Catholic Church bold enough to assert (as for instance St Hildegarde had done in the twelfth century) that a man who errs in religious matters is still one of God’s creatures, and that to deprive him of his life is a crime. The Church which so resolutely forgot this very simple truth no longer deserved the title of ‘Catholic’; in this sense we may claim that heresy had dealt the Church a blow from which it never recovered.
The victory was bought at too great a price. Even if the Roman Church, by taking the strong line against heresy that she did, spared Western Christendom grave troubles which might have brought the whole social and cultural structure crashing down in ruins—and this is by no means certain—she only did so at the cost of a moral capitulation the consequences of which she is still suffering today.”
“Before the Albigensian Crusade and the inquisition, bishops and abbots still raised their voices in protest against the burning of heretics, and preached compassion towards such strayed brethren. In the thirteen century, however, St Thomas Aquinas justified such autos-da-fé in terms that are ill-suited to any Christian. Excesses that could previously be attributed to ignorance or the brutal mores of the period were now given the stamp of approval, consecrated ex cathedra theologica by one of the greatest philosophers of Christianity. This fact is too serious to be minimized. From the thirteenth century onwards we no longer find saint or doctor in the Catholic Church bold enough to assert (as for instance St Hildegarde had done in the twelfth century) that a man who errs in religious matters is still one of God’s creatures, and that to deprive him of his life is a crime. The Church which so resolutely forgot this very simple truth no longer deserved the title of ‘Catholic’; in this sense we may claim that heresy had dealt the Church a blow from which it never recovered.
The victory was bought at too great a price. Even if the Roman Church, by taking the strong line against heresy that she did, spared Western Christendom grave troubles which might have brought the whole social and cultural structure crashing down in ruins—and this is by no means certain—she only did so at the cost of a moral capitulation the consequences of which she is still suffering today.”
September 5, 2021
A crusade with a difference. This crusade was against fellow Christians, good folk who had the temerity to want to return to a simpler religion, independent of the cumbersome and wealthy Catholic church.
The lands of Languedoc were nominally French, though Paris was far away and the power of the French king was less than that of the local barons, with the Count of Toulouse at the top of the local pyramid.
Many of the locals followed the Cathar heresy, and this became unbearable to the local church and the Papacy - they could see that their interests (and income) were threatened. In this the pope's interest was aligned with that of the French king, as the crusade provided a way to bind Languedoc closer to France.
What followed was a merciless Christian on Christian war. The Languedoc nobility sympathised with the Cathars and many fought to keep the invaders out. Ultimately the Crusaders prevailed, though it took thirty years of ebb and flow - and a vicious Inquisition that burned thousands - to beat the Cathars into submission.
An early event gives a flavour of the carnage. The town of Beziers was taken in 1209 by a stroke of luck, in the early stages of the Crusade. Everyone in the town, 20,000 people, were butchered on the orders of the Pope's legate Arnaud Almaric. Almaric was reputed to have said "kill them all, God will recognise his own"
Oldenbourg takes us right into the thick of it, and does a great job of marshalling the contemporary sources and modern interpretation. A good read.
The lands of Languedoc were nominally French, though Paris was far away and the power of the French king was less than that of the local barons, with the Count of Toulouse at the top of the local pyramid.
Many of the locals followed the Cathar heresy, and this became unbearable to the local church and the Papacy - they could see that their interests (and income) were threatened. In this the pope's interest was aligned with that of the French king, as the crusade provided a way to bind Languedoc closer to France.
What followed was a merciless Christian on Christian war. The Languedoc nobility sympathised with the Cathars and many fought to keep the invaders out. Ultimately the Crusaders prevailed, though it took thirty years of ebb and flow - and a vicious Inquisition that burned thousands - to beat the Cathars into submission.
An early event gives a flavour of the carnage. The town of Beziers was taken in 1209 by a stroke of luck, in the early stages of the Crusade. Everyone in the town, 20,000 people, were butchered on the orders of the Pope's legate Arnaud Almaric. Almaric was reputed to have said "kill them all, God will recognise his own"
Oldenbourg takes us right into the thick of it, and does a great job of marshalling the contemporary sources and modern interpretation. A good read.
December 21, 2008
What a great history book this was; great pace, exciting, bloody anecdotes mixed in at just the right times. And it covers a lot more ground than the last book I read about this stuff.
This is really one of the most interesting little corners of history if you are at all curious about the history of France or of the Christian church. If you haven't ever heard about the Albigensian Crusade (where have you been? living under a rock?), let me give you a rundown. Round about the year 1200, the Pope was feeling pretty good about his ability to send great big crusading armies to do his bidding, usually in the holy land. The crusading armies were fond of crusades, because they got all their sins forgiven and no one could bother them about debts or things while they were off fighting. But they were sick of having to get all the way to Jerusalem. (In fact, the last time, they had given up halfway and sacked Constantinople instead). So the Pope decided to use a crusade to stamp out a particularly feisty sect of heretics called "Cathars", who had built a sort of rival Christian faith in an area of Southern France.
Now the Cathar faith had really grown impressively by 1200, they actually outnumbered Catholics in many areas. They had been noticeably around in France for over two hundred years. But having a crusade against them wasn't exactly fair. The Muslims were a little more prepared for this kind of thing. The Cathars were vegetarian pacifists. The higher-ups weren't allowed to kill anything, not even a chicken. So, as you could imagine, this was something of a bloodbath. There were several instances of armored knights hacking small cities of men, women and children into little bits. And once the original crusade kinda wrapped up, the church started an inquisition to hunt down heretics. The author is of the opinion that this is the point where the Catholics kinda sold their souls and started down a bad road that lead to the spanish inquisition and other awful things, and I can see that.
What's really interesting about this to me is that this is a real turning point in history. If this crusade had never happened, the cathars could have grown even larger, and they had a lot of the same goals that the protestants ended up having. Maybe the reformation never would have happened. If the northern French knights hadn't basically subjugated this whole area of what is now Southern France, maybe it wouldn't have ended up as France at all. It could have ended up as part of Spain, or as its own country. (it spoke its own language, which by now is close to dead).
The other great thing about this book is that it's filled with this kind of dry wit. I actually laughed sometimes, which is odd in a history book about a crusade. I don't know if this is Oldenbourg or the translator, but it keeps the book interesting.
This is really one of the most interesting little corners of history if you are at all curious about the history of France or of the Christian church. If you haven't ever heard about the Albigensian Crusade (where have you been? living under a rock?), let me give you a rundown. Round about the year 1200, the Pope was feeling pretty good about his ability to send great big crusading armies to do his bidding, usually in the holy land. The crusading armies were fond of crusades, because they got all their sins forgiven and no one could bother them about debts or things while they were off fighting. But they were sick of having to get all the way to Jerusalem. (In fact, the last time, they had given up halfway and sacked Constantinople instead). So the Pope decided to use a crusade to stamp out a particularly feisty sect of heretics called "Cathars", who had built a sort of rival Christian faith in an area of Southern France.
Now the Cathar faith had really grown impressively by 1200, they actually outnumbered Catholics in many areas. They had been noticeably around in France for over two hundred years. But having a crusade against them wasn't exactly fair. The Muslims were a little more prepared for this kind of thing. The Cathars were vegetarian pacifists. The higher-ups weren't allowed to kill anything, not even a chicken. So, as you could imagine, this was something of a bloodbath. There were several instances of armored knights hacking small cities of men, women and children into little bits. And once the original crusade kinda wrapped up, the church started an inquisition to hunt down heretics. The author is of the opinion that this is the point where the Catholics kinda sold their souls and started down a bad road that lead to the spanish inquisition and other awful things, and I can see that.
What's really interesting about this to me is that this is a real turning point in history. If this crusade had never happened, the cathars could have grown even larger, and they had a lot of the same goals that the protestants ended up having. Maybe the reformation never would have happened. If the northern French knights hadn't basically subjugated this whole area of what is now Southern France, maybe it wouldn't have ended up as France at all. It could have ended up as part of Spain, or as its own country. (it spoke its own language, which by now is close to dead).
The other great thing about this book is that it's filled with this kind of dry wit. I actually laughed sometimes, which is odd in a history book about a crusade. I don't know if this is Oldenbourg or the translator, but it keeps the book interesting.
July 28, 2015
A motley militia led by warlords professing extreme religious views rampages across land legitimately held by others, murdering, torturing, and dispossessing the inhabitants in the name of a narrow, intolerant version of a religion whose basis is supposedly peace and universal brotherhood. All very familiar. And yet this is not the self-proclaimed 'Islamic State' of the 21st century in Syria and Iraq, but the self-proclaimed Catholic Church of the 13th century in the Languedoc, southern France.
Zoe Oldenbourg's classic 1959 study of the Church's cynical and bloody crusade against the Cathars brings vividly to life this deeply unedifying episode of political machination and institutional religious powerplay. On its original publication such benighted savagery, which saw thousands put to the sword, mutilated, or burnt alive for 'heresy', must have seemed like a distant memory. Indeed, although the official (that is, the Church's) historical records on which her book is based clearly demonstrate how important Catharism must have been in the civilisation of southern France at the time, Oldenbourg admits that there survives very little of the Cathars' own records, or even much knowledge of what it was they believed, such was the thoroughness with which they were exterminated by French baronial forces and their mercenaries, led initially by Simon de Montfort and backed by the Pope.
Catharism appears to have been a firm of Gnostic Christianity, heavily influenced by Manichaean dualism, and at the end of the 12th century a major contender to Catholicism as the principal religion of the Languedoc. It would certainly seem to have been closely bound up, along with the regional language, the Langue d'Oc itself, as a national symbol, and for this reason the local nobility, while not necessarily devotees themselves, were assiduous in protecting their 'heretical' vassals and townsfolk against interference by both the Church and an expansionist French state. Interestingly, it appears that pacifism was a tenet of the Cathars' belief, so it was lucky that their lords were not particularly pious !
Among the several extraordinary players in this sordid, real-life game of thrones, the Counts of Toulouse, Raymonds VI and VII, stand out as cunning, daring, and - the odd massacre aside - almost sympathetic in their swashbuckling and somewhat creative attitude toward swearing allegiance to Catholicism and the King, which both did several times before abjuring their oaths in order to defend their lands against these foreign powers. De Montfort himself gets short shrift from the author, as do most of the Catholic bishops and Papal Legates involved, for their preoccupation with earthly power at the expense of the burned bodies of religious dissenters. Most sinister, however, was St Dominic, whose very rapid canonisation after his death in the middle of these horrible events seems to have been earned mainly by his assiduousness in sending his fellow humans to the stake. The Pope was evidently so impressed he gave his order of preaching friars a new job as an Inquisition...
Zoe Oldenbourg's classic 1959 study of the Church's cynical and bloody crusade against the Cathars brings vividly to life this deeply unedifying episode of political machination and institutional religious powerplay. On its original publication such benighted savagery, which saw thousands put to the sword, mutilated, or burnt alive for 'heresy', must have seemed like a distant memory. Indeed, although the official (that is, the Church's) historical records on which her book is based clearly demonstrate how important Catharism must have been in the civilisation of southern France at the time, Oldenbourg admits that there survives very little of the Cathars' own records, or even much knowledge of what it was they believed, such was the thoroughness with which they were exterminated by French baronial forces and their mercenaries, led initially by Simon de Montfort and backed by the Pope.
Catharism appears to have been a firm of Gnostic Christianity, heavily influenced by Manichaean dualism, and at the end of the 12th century a major contender to Catholicism as the principal religion of the Languedoc. It would certainly seem to have been closely bound up, along with the regional language, the Langue d'Oc itself, as a national symbol, and for this reason the local nobility, while not necessarily devotees themselves, were assiduous in protecting their 'heretical' vassals and townsfolk against interference by both the Church and an expansionist French state. Interestingly, it appears that pacifism was a tenet of the Cathars' belief, so it was lucky that their lords were not particularly pious !
Among the several extraordinary players in this sordid, real-life game of thrones, the Counts of Toulouse, Raymonds VI and VII, stand out as cunning, daring, and - the odd massacre aside - almost sympathetic in their swashbuckling and somewhat creative attitude toward swearing allegiance to Catholicism and the King, which both did several times before abjuring their oaths in order to defend their lands against these foreign powers. De Montfort himself gets short shrift from the author, as do most of the Catholic bishops and Papal Legates involved, for their preoccupation with earthly power at the expense of the burned bodies of religious dissenters. Most sinister, however, was St Dominic, whose very rapid canonisation after his death in the middle of these horrible events seems to have been earned mainly by his assiduousness in sending his fellow humans to the stake. The Pope was evidently so impressed he gave his order of preaching friars a new job as an Inquisition...
June 27, 2022
A mostly readable account of the Albigensian Crusade and its aftermath, but brought down a good ways by a few issues.
First, the writing is very dense. I'm not sure how much of this is Oldenbourg's own doing and how much is attributable to the translator (who really likes the term "dead letter"). The text feels like it ranges back and forth across the same topics many times successively, each time only layering on a thin new patina of meaning and interpretation. It can get very tiring to read, and I reckon maybe a third of the book could be cut without losing much.
Second, as odd as it seems to say, the author is pretty heavily biased in favor of the Cathars. On the one hand, it would definitely be strange NOT to feel sympathy for these people who were persecuted, often to the death, for their (essentially harmless, to a modern observer) beliefs; however, the author goes rather farther than a historian should, I think. She portrays the Cathar perfects as superhumanly noble and wonderful people, and repeatedly emphasizes their willingness to die for their faith, while glossing over the many who turned traitor and snitched to the Inquisition, and ignoring any evidence that they were fallible humans. (The best-known individual Cathar is probably Pierre Clergue, a major figure in the study Montaillou: The Promised Land of Error; he was sort of a tin-pot dictator, and preyed sexually on the village's women. The last known Cathar perfect in Languedoc fled home after killing a man, before becoming a perfect. Later he got his lover pregnant, convinced a friend to marry said lover, then dissolved the marriage, making it look like his friend was the father, as cover for himself. These stories may not be typical, but they show that the Cathar priesthood was just as capable of engaging in sordid antics as the Catholic one.) Oldenbourg's Cathars can come across as shallow, inhuman, and actually more difficult to empathize with for their lack of humanizing features.
Third, Oldenbourg makes the mistake of believing the present castle at Montsegur to be the one the Cathars used. There's a sketch of the castle in the front matter, and in the text she describes its construction, and makes deductions about the course of the siege from its position and shape, etc. She also engages in a little speculation based on supposed solar alignments in the construction. In reality, the Cathar castle was torn down after the siege, and the present castle on the site dates to several centuries later. The current castle is architecturally very different from its predecessor, making all of Oldenbourg's deductions and speculations groundless. This is a pretty fundamental error to make, especially for someone writing a history book. It's alarming that nobody caught it- this isn't obscure knowledge.
The book's narrative ends abruptly with the surrender of Montsegur, which makes for a dramatic and obvious ending, but it doesn't go into any detail at all about the following century of the Inquisition's efforts to weed out the remaining Cathars, and it says nothing about the heretics of Northern Italy.
This is a very "romantic" book, prone to sweeping statements and emotive vignettes, precision and analysis be damned, and short on theses and argument. Oldenbourg sometimes presents the Cathars in a pseudo-/proto-nationalist light, but never really develops this idea. She claims that the Church's violent suppression of heresy was a moral capitulation with lasting repercussions- but doesn't really explain why this is somehow different or worse than earlier suppressions of heresies, or indeed of the contemporary Crusades against non-Christian targets. Mostly she seems to identify with the underdogs in this story, but she isn't really a good enough storyteller to bring the reader to identify with them similarly, and she isn't interested enough in analysis to make solid arguments as to why they should. She's prone to citing isolated primary sources, and taking them at face value, rather than collating accounts. She has a lot of secondary sources in her bibliography, mostly academic works, but doesn't cite many of them in the text, and isn't really interested in an academic approach.
On a lesser note, it'd be nice if the book had better maps. There's one little map at the front of the book, but it doesn't show anything east of Beziers or north of Toulouse, and omits many places mentioned in the text (eg Avignonet, which is a pretty important place in the narrative).
In all, I don't really regret reading this book, but I also don't feel like I've read anything near a definitive book on the subject.
First, the writing is very dense. I'm not sure how much of this is Oldenbourg's own doing and how much is attributable to the translator (who really likes the term "dead letter"). The text feels like it ranges back and forth across the same topics many times successively, each time only layering on a thin new patina of meaning and interpretation. It can get very tiring to read, and I reckon maybe a third of the book could be cut without losing much.
Second, as odd as it seems to say, the author is pretty heavily biased in favor of the Cathars. On the one hand, it would definitely be strange NOT to feel sympathy for these people who were persecuted, often to the death, for their (essentially harmless, to a modern observer) beliefs; however, the author goes rather farther than a historian should, I think. She portrays the Cathar perfects as superhumanly noble and wonderful people, and repeatedly emphasizes their willingness to die for their faith, while glossing over the many who turned traitor and snitched to the Inquisition, and ignoring any evidence that they were fallible humans. (The best-known individual Cathar is probably Pierre Clergue, a major figure in the study Montaillou: The Promised Land of Error; he was sort of a tin-pot dictator, and preyed sexually on the village's women. The last known Cathar perfect in Languedoc fled home after killing a man, before becoming a perfect. Later he got his lover pregnant, convinced a friend to marry said lover, then dissolved the marriage, making it look like his friend was the father, as cover for himself. These stories may not be typical, but they show that the Cathar priesthood was just as capable of engaging in sordid antics as the Catholic one.) Oldenbourg's Cathars can come across as shallow, inhuman, and actually more difficult to empathize with for their lack of humanizing features.
Third, Oldenbourg makes the mistake of believing the present castle at Montsegur to be the one the Cathars used. There's a sketch of the castle in the front matter, and in the text she describes its construction, and makes deductions about the course of the siege from its position and shape, etc. She also engages in a little speculation based on supposed solar alignments in the construction. In reality, the Cathar castle was torn down after the siege, and the present castle on the site dates to several centuries later. The current castle is architecturally very different from its predecessor, making all of Oldenbourg's deductions and speculations groundless. This is a pretty fundamental error to make, especially for someone writing a history book. It's alarming that nobody caught it- this isn't obscure knowledge.
The book's narrative ends abruptly with the surrender of Montsegur, which makes for a dramatic and obvious ending, but it doesn't go into any detail at all about the following century of the Inquisition's efforts to weed out the remaining Cathars, and it says nothing about the heretics of Northern Italy.
This is a very "romantic" book, prone to sweeping statements and emotive vignettes, precision and analysis be damned, and short on theses and argument. Oldenbourg sometimes presents the Cathars in a pseudo-/proto-nationalist light, but never really develops this idea. She claims that the Church's violent suppression of heresy was a moral capitulation with lasting repercussions- but doesn't really explain why this is somehow different or worse than earlier suppressions of heresies, or indeed of the contemporary Crusades against non-Christian targets. Mostly she seems to identify with the underdogs in this story, but she isn't really a good enough storyteller to bring the reader to identify with them similarly, and she isn't interested enough in analysis to make solid arguments as to why they should. She's prone to citing isolated primary sources, and taking them at face value, rather than collating accounts. She has a lot of secondary sources in her bibliography, mostly academic works, but doesn't cite many of them in the text, and isn't really interested in an academic approach.
On a lesser note, it'd be nice if the book had better maps. There's one little map at the front of the book, but it doesn't show anything east of Beziers or north of Toulouse, and omits many places mentioned in the text (eg Avignonet, which is a pretty important place in the narrative).
In all, I don't really regret reading this book, but I also don't feel like I've read anything near a definitive book on the subject.
February 6, 2024
A compelling and very well-researched study of the Albigensian Crusade. Difficult to read due to the dark subject matter but an important resource for anyone interested in this period of French and/or Catholic history.
I found Simon de Montfort and Peter II of Aragon to be fascinating characters. The former being a bloodthirsty, power-hungry Lord and the latter a more moderate and fair King and Count. Both of these men were excellent military commanders. Peter II died courageously in the heat of battle at Muret and Monfort had his head crushed by a stone tossed from a trebuchet, he was killed instantly. The French Lord possessed an unflinching and resolute faith; he sought to destroy heresy at whatever cost. Many commoners celebrated and sung about his death.
The Inquisition that comprised the later stages of the Crusade was devastating and unjust, the book makes that clear. Scores of innocent people were burned at the stake and the Church did immeasurable damage to the Occitan region and Herself. Oldenburg argues that the Church is still dealing with the moral consequences to this day. It could be difficult to dispute that given the amount of Inquisitions that were carried out in Europe after the Albigensian Crusade.
The Epilogue points to the fact that these barbaric practices, once condemned by the Church and viewed as ignorant and abnormal, were now “consecrated” completely. All the more disturbing is the fact that great Church doctors like St. Thomas Aquinas supported these violent actions. There was a philosophical shift during this period in which the focus of the Catholic faith was less on the forgiveness of man and viewing him as God’s creation, and more to a hardline rigid dogma. A dogma that did not spare the sinner.
A troubling story filled with horrific chapters that portray mankind at its absolute lowest form. It was the innocent who suffered the most. The common peasant. Those forgotten to history. Cast into a mass grave or a river. Burned at the stake. Cathars and Catholics alike. Slaughtered for naught but a political maneuver orchestrated by the Clergy and a few nobles while being couched as a crusade against hearsay.
I found Simon de Montfort and Peter II of Aragon to be fascinating characters. The former being a bloodthirsty, power-hungry Lord and the latter a more moderate and fair King and Count. Both of these men were excellent military commanders. Peter II died courageously in the heat of battle at Muret and Monfort had his head crushed by a stone tossed from a trebuchet, he was killed instantly. The French Lord possessed an unflinching and resolute faith; he sought to destroy heresy at whatever cost. Many commoners celebrated and sung about his death.
The Inquisition that comprised the later stages of the Crusade was devastating and unjust, the book makes that clear. Scores of innocent people were burned at the stake and the Church did immeasurable damage to the Occitan region and Herself. Oldenburg argues that the Church is still dealing with the moral consequences to this day. It could be difficult to dispute that given the amount of Inquisitions that were carried out in Europe after the Albigensian Crusade.
The Epilogue points to the fact that these barbaric practices, once condemned by the Church and viewed as ignorant and abnormal, were now “consecrated” completely. All the more disturbing is the fact that great Church doctors like St. Thomas Aquinas supported these violent actions. There was a philosophical shift during this period in which the focus of the Catholic faith was less on the forgiveness of man and viewing him as God’s creation, and more to a hardline rigid dogma. A dogma that did not spare the sinner.
A troubling story filled with horrific chapters that portray mankind at its absolute lowest form. It was the innocent who suffered the most. The common peasant. Those forgotten to history. Cast into a mass grave or a river. Burned at the stake. Cathars and Catholics alike. Slaughtered for naught but a political maneuver orchestrated by the Clergy and a few nobles while being couched as a crusade against hearsay.
May 13, 2025
Zoe Oldenburg was fine, long-lived (1916-2002) was a Russian-born French popular historian and novelist who specialized in medieval French history, in particular the Crusades and Cathars. This is her history of the Cathars and the Albigensian Crusade. There was a time, probably around the publication of 'Labyrinth' by Kate Mosse in 2005, when I read quite a few books about the Cathars and the dreadful crusade that devastated the Landudec, but was never as romantically attached to the Cathars as writers such as Mosse (see footnote *1 below). Ms. Oldenburg is both more learned and more intelligent than the likes of novelists like Mosse, but she did write this history nearly seventy years ago. It is unimpeachable in the way she has used the contemporary or near contemporary chroniclers and histories but history has moved on since then. Is she worth yes, in the same way that I would say Steven Runciman is, but only as a beginning or with the awareness that there is much more to understand.
*1 see my review of the novel 'Flicker' by Theodore Roszak on GR.
*1 see my review of the novel 'Flicker' by Theodore Roszak on GR.
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April 15, 2012Not "currently reading" so much as "slogging through" - fascinating historical period and region, but terribly dense writing. Peter Green is not the author but the translator; author is Zoe Oldenbourg.
June 1, 2020
One of those books that has sat on my book shelves for years unread, waiting to be picked up, finally got its turn, and now I regret not having done so years ago! I knew relatively little about the history of the region, beyond the perspective of the Plantagenet kings of England, and tall tales of lost treasure and mystical sects, so this tome was highly informative, not only for the whys and wherefores, but also the wider geopolitical landscape of Europe in the 1100's.
A well researched walk through the events leading up to the massacre, where the Catholics massacred hundreds in a massive pyre at the walls of the castle of Montsegur, having already burnt many thousands more in the decades leading to this awful conflagration, and all the major players on all sides are presented warts and all, this book does not reflect well on the actions of the catholic church, from its popes to the inquisition, led by the hypocritically pious followers of st Dominic, who himself tried preaching to the cathars to dissuade them from what they (the catholic church) saw as heresy, even engaging in a debate with them ... and helps put to context the continuing conflicts that smoulder in the regions, when the country we know as France was a much smaller nation, based in Paris and the North, and the political game her Kings made to encourage a crusade against what was, for all it's 'heresy' a country of people who worshipped the same sky fairy, but only paid token fealty to him, as the Count of Toulose and his vassals playing the holy roman empire, along with the kings of Aragon, England and France against each other in order to keep their own autonomy ... The massacre itself is played out in the final chapter, the preceding chapters give the context of how it got to that place, and shows the links of intermarriage, that bound them all together ... and in that regard, it is most rewarding IMHO ...
A well researched walk through the events leading up to the massacre, where the Catholics massacred hundreds in a massive pyre at the walls of the castle of Montsegur, having already burnt many thousands more in the decades leading to this awful conflagration, and all the major players on all sides are presented warts and all, this book does not reflect well on the actions of the catholic church, from its popes to the inquisition, led by the hypocritically pious followers of st Dominic, who himself tried preaching to the cathars to dissuade them from what they (the catholic church) saw as heresy, even engaging in a debate with them ... and helps put to context the continuing conflicts that smoulder in the regions, when the country we know as France was a much smaller nation, based in Paris and the North, and the political game her Kings made to encourage a crusade against what was, for all it's 'heresy' a country of people who worshipped the same sky fairy, but only paid token fealty to him, as the Count of Toulose and his vassals playing the holy roman empire, along with the kings of Aragon, England and France against each other in order to keep their own autonomy ... The massacre itself is played out in the final chapter, the preceding chapters give the context of how it got to that place, and shows the links of intermarriage, that bound them all together ... and in that regard, it is most rewarding IMHO ...
October 26, 2018
Grim stuff. It's amazing to think how religion can justify setting people on fire to proclaim God's glory.
And of course Oldenbourg correctly points out that Abbot Arnald-Almaric probably never actually said of the citizens of Beziers "Kill them all, God will look after his own": there wouldn't have been time, since Beziers fell because a few of the citizens decided to sally forth in front of the town and taunt the armies besieging them, as in Monty Python and the Holy Grail; whereupon the mercenaries chivied the citizens, stormed the castle, and put all the citizens to the sword, and for good measure burned the town down before the knights and nobles could plunder the town's wealth.
And of course Oldenbourg correctly points out that Abbot Arnald-Almaric probably never actually said of the citizens of Beziers "Kill them all, God will look after his own": there wouldn't have been time, since Beziers fell because a few of the citizens decided to sally forth in front of the town and taunt the armies besieging them, as in Monty Python and the Holy Grail; whereupon the mercenaries chivied the citizens, stormed the castle, and put all the citizens to the sword, and for good measure burned the town down before the knights and nobles could plunder the town's wealth.
July 18, 2023
I found this by chance at the back of a second hand bookshop. It was a crusade I knew nothing about, so I bought it on a whim. I'm very glad I did! It vividly brings to life a world I didn't know about, the Catharist Church, rival Crusaders battling one another, great sieges, the origins of Catholic Inquisition, and the tragic breakdown of a once thriving and distinct country.
Sometimes I found myself getting lost in a sea of names, but overall I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It really opened my eyes to a part of history I knew nothing about.
Sometimes I found myself getting lost in a sea of names, but overall I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It really opened my eyes to a part of history I knew nothing about.
September 11, 2025
Read in the early 2000s whilst visiting some of the Cathar sites in southern France. This is a story that needed to be told and retold. An appalling series of events whereby a small community of passive, unimposing and peace-loving people were systematically persecuted and ulitimately wiped off the face of the earth for having the temerity to organise themselves according to their own beliefs. I came across the Cathars after reading Vaneigem's Movement of the Free Spirit. I do not believe anyone could study this and not regard the Catholic church with the utmost of contempt.
October 14, 2018
A stirring (if often list-ish) recount of one of the many tumultuous periods of French and papal history.
The tone of this book very much paints the Cathars in a positive light, but it's well sourced and provides a fascinating read
The tone of this book very much paints the Cathars in a positive light, but it's well sourced and provides a fascinating read
August 6, 2017
Too scholarly for me. Too much info that was uninteresting to me.
Currently reading
August 12, 2022As fine a story of this sad episode in human history as one could hope for. A very rounded vision of the times, culture and politics. Excellent translation.
July 20, 2023
ToDo: Add notes.
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October 7, 2015Still slogging along, it is a good read but has to be taken in small bites.
8/3/13 - So this is not a summer book, or prehaps I am just a summer reader, I have not abandoned this book, just put it on hiatus, besides, I was seduced by Sara Gran, almost finished with her Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead. Back to history in the fall, my only history fig leaf is I am also reading Bring Up the Bodies, good enough for summer history.
8/3/13 - So this is not a summer book, or prehaps I am just a summer reader, I have not abandoned this book, just put it on hiatus, besides, I was seduced by Sara Gran, almost finished with her Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead. Back to history in the fall, my only history fig leaf is I am also reading Bring Up the Bodies, good enough for summer history.
October 18, 2010
We are planning to visit this area of France on our next trip to Europe. This is a history of the Cathars, a Christian religion that was wiped out by the Catholic Church. Religious intolerance has a long history.
July 9, 2013
A comprehensive analysis of the Cathar Hersey in southern France; very scholarly work, tonnes of details, covers key characters, battles with a solid background and context to the crusade. Not an introduction but certainly for those who want to get their teeth into the period.
September 28, 2013
Zoe Oldenberg stands high among historians of her time for the combination of meticulous research, clear and classy writing, unusual subjects and popular appeal. This book is no exception. If I have time I'd like to re-read it.
July 6, 2008
Not for the casual history reader
October 16, 2014
Sad. Hate the Catholic Church
June 27, 2013
I registered a book at BookCrossing.com!
http://www.BookCrossing.com/journal/12008529
http://www.BookCrossing.com/journal/12008529
December 9, 2015
An excellent read from start to finish.
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