The Southern French Nobility and the Albigensian Crusade ebook

by Elaine Graham-Leigh

The Albigensian Crusade was called by Pope Innocent III in 1208 against the Count of Toulouse in response to the murder of. .thirteenth century but also in the twelfth. ELAINE GRAHAM-LEIGH gained her P. from the University of London.

The Albigensian Crusade was called by Pope Innocent III in 1208 against the Count of Toulouse in response to the murder of the papal legate Pierre des Castelnau.

Book Description: The Albigensian Crusade was called by Pope Innocent III in 1208 against the Count of Toulouse in response to the murder of the papal legate Pierre des Castelnau

Book Description: The Albigensian Crusade was called by Pope Innocent III in 1208 against the Count of Toulouse in response to the murder of the papal legate Pierre des Castelnau. The Pope's aim was to force the Count and other nobles in Languedoc to take action against the Cathar heretics in their lands, but in the end, the defeat of Catharism in the south of France was achieved through the establishment of the Inquisition and the extension of French royal authority to the area.

2 The Southern French Nobility and the Albigensian Crusade. open lying in state, allowed to Raimond Roger by Simon de Montfort looks less a magnanimous gesture than a desperate attempt to stave off the inevitable. 6 Despite this and Guillaume de Tudela’s emphatic rebuttal, the rumours appear to have remained common currency into the later thirteenth century.

The Albigensian Crusade or the Cathar Crusade (1209–1229; French: Croisade des albigeois, Occitan: Crosada dels albigeses) was a 20-year military campaign initiated by Pope Innocent III to eliminate Catharism in Languedoc, in southern France

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ELAINE GRAHAM-LEIGH gained her P. from the University of London

ELAINE GRAHAM-LEIGH gained her P. Having read several books recently on the Cathars and on the Albigensian Crusades I was hungry to find books in English (which seem to be few and far between) about more of the protagonists in the Crusades, the life of the people of Languedoc, and the key players in this time. So to find this book which focuses largely on the history and fortunes of the Trencavel family in Languedoc was like finding my own little pot of gold.

Speculum 82 (3):708-710 (2007). Similar books and articles. A Most Holy War: The Albigensian Crusade and the Battle for Christendom. Nobility and Modern Monarchy-J. Alan Friedlander - 2009 - Speculum 84 (3):763-765. Rousseau & the Eighteenth Century Essays in Memory of R. A. Leigh.

Elaine Graham-Leigh - The Southern French Nobility and the Albigensian Crusade. Ian Steedman, John R Atherton, Elaine Graham - The Practices of Happiness: Political Economy, Religion and Wellbeing. Ian Steedman, John R Atherton, Elaine Graham. Читать pdf. Susan Elaine Gray - I Will Fear No Evil: Ojibwa-missionary Encounters Along the Berens River, 1875-1940.

The Albigensian Crusade was called by Pope Innocent III in 1208 against the Count of Toulouse in response to the murder of the papal legate Pierre des Castelnau. The Pope's aim was to force the Count and other nobles in Languedoc to take action against the Cathar heretics in their lands, but in the end, the defeat of Catharism in the south of France was achieved through the establishment of the Inquisition and the extension of French royal authority to the area. While some Occitan noble families survived the crusade, others were destroyed and the behaviour of the crusaders towards the local nobility has often been regarded as rather arbitrary, unconnected to how these families related to each other before 1209. This study takes the case of the Trencavel Viscounts of Béziers and Carcassonne, who were the only members of the higher nobility to lose their lands to the crusade, and argues that an understanding of how the Occitan nobility fared in the crusade years must be based in the context of the politics of the noble society of Languedoc, not only in the thirteenth century but also in the twelfth. ELAINE GRAHAM-LEIGH gained her Ph.D. from the University of London.

Alsantrius

...although unfortunately I had to skim through the second half. That's what happens when you put off a gigantic research paper until the last minute. Curse you, Procrastination! And yet, for some reason, I'm taking time to write this review. Clearly I'm incurable.

Anyway, this is an incredibly detailed (and surprisingly readable) survey of the maddeningly complex political networks that existed in the Languedoc on the eve of the Albigensian Crusade. It revolves around the sad tale of Raymond Roger Trencavel, viscount of Beziers and Carcassonne, who was the first member of the high Languedoc nobility to be victimized and dispossessed at the outset of the crusade. After Beziers was burned to the ground, he was pursued to Carcassonne, besieged, captured, and imprisoned in the dungeon of one of his own castles. There he died of "dysentery," supposedly, though conspiracy theories abound.

Graham-Leigh deftly picks apart the social landscape of the Languedoc, and that's an impressive feat, considering that most of the Trencavel and Toulousaine counts are named "Raymond" or "Roger" or some combination of the two. Her thesis seems to be that Raymond Roger Trencavel, erstwhile lord of the region that became the main battlefield of the crusade, was in fact quite lacking in real power, and thus an ideal target for persecution. Whether Pope Innocent III actually recognized this, and whether he actively used it to his advantage, is not yet clear, but Graham-Leigh makes an elegant case for a political interpretation of the Albigensian Crusade. It's not all about hidden Cathar treasure!

Yet the truth is often stranger than the conspiracy theories - Grahame-Leigh's descriptions of familial intrigues and underlying power structures would be right at home in an HBO miniseries (hint, hint, HBO execs). Languedoc was not as insulated as some might believe. Peter II of Aragon was a major power player, for example; and the papal legates sent into Languedoc ostensibly to root out heresy often deposed negligent bishops in the process, severely altering the balance of power in the region. There is no doubt that certain Southern nobles tolerated heretics, and some perhaps actively protected them, but it is doubtful that any members of the higher nobility were avowed Cathars - it would have been political suicide! In fact the relationships between the Trencavel lords and their Catholic bishops were often characterized by close cooperation, and both groups perceived intruding papal legates as significant threats to regional stability. Heretics were one thing; an increasingly ambitious papacy was quite another. By analyzing the Languedoc nobility within this broader context, Graham-Leigh reveals that the Albigensian Crusade had its deepest origins not in shadowy heretics, but concrete power politics. Her study sweeps aside the mystique so often associated with this critical period in French history, and opens the door for new scholarship. I for one applaud her work!

FLIDER

This book is a must for anyone who tries to understand the motives of those who incited the Albigensian Crusades as well as who they were and why their real targets were especially vulnerable. It is well written and documented and provides copious evidence that the leaders of the Cistercian Order –“White Monks” who clove to the austerity and manual labor that “Black Monks ( Benedictines) had abandoned—resented the lack of patronage from some of the highest nobles in the land of lenga d’oc. Graham-Leigh relates how, from the very onset of his reign, Pope Innocent III chose papal legates from the ranks of the Cistercians and relied on their diligence in ridding the Church of bishops who opposed his attempts to centralize the Holy See to their detriment. The deposed bishops all too often were related to nobles who did not fund Cistercian monasteries or who were delinquent in payments. The Cistercians were only too eager to report to the pope that such nobles were heretics.
The author also makes clear the social and political factors that made the region politically weak and ripe for invasion. The fractured and multiple inheritances that contrasted with those in the North made it an easy target. Even worse, and this is the crux of her book, it exposed the Trencavels -- sometime Viscounts of Albi, Bezier and Carcassonne – as weaklings with few potential allies and with poor relations with the Cistercians. When the chips were down, the Count of Toulouse – the ostensible target of the Crusade, turned coat and joined the Crusade. But when Raimond Roger Trencavel tried the same ploy, he was refused, and no one of importance stood up for him. The leader of the Crusade, a Cistercian Abbot (who else?) supervised the frightful massacre and burning of Bezier and the imprisonment of Trencavel after the fall of Carcassonne.
Graham Leigh clinches her argument about Trencavel’s hapless situation by reminding us that the rich city of Narbonne lay on the highway between Bezier and Carcassonne, yet the Crusaders failed to sack it, let alone attack it. It lay outside of the dominions of Trencavel and had strong ties to the Cistercians.
The author’s dénouement is not a sentimental case of a civilization “gone-with-the-wind,” but tells how many of the families of nobles who fought hardest against the crusaders became powerful and prosperous leaders under French rule. As an incurable romantic, I find this tough to swallow, but Graham- Leigh’s command of history and particularly its recitation is so faultless that I just ignore that bothersome lump in my throat. Readers know a lot more after reading this book than they ever imagined and I recommend it to everyone interested in history and particularly the turbulent era that she describes so well.