The Song of the Cathar Wars
Subtitle: A History of the Albigensian Crusade (Crusade Texts in Translation)
Contributors: Janet Shirley (Translator)
Publisher: Scolar Press
Published: June 1996
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 210
ISBN-13: 9781859283318
Subjects: Poetry anthologies: classical, early & medieval; Languedoc (France); French Poetry; Poetry; French; History; Philip II Augustus, 1180-1223; Albigenses; France; General
Description: The Song of the Cathar Wars is the first translation into English of the Old Proveṅal Canso recounting the events of the years 1204-1218 in Southern France. In an effort to extirpate the Cathar heresy, Pope Innocent III launched what is now known as the Albigensian Crusade, but it was fiercely resisted by the lords and people of the Languedoc, if in the end in vain. This song was written in two parts, the first by William of Tudela, a supporter of the crusade; the second by an anonymous continuer, wholeheartedly in sympathy with the southerners, although not with the heretics themselves. It stands as a historical source of great importance, not least because it depicts the side that lost. The poem is also a skilful, dramatic and often impassioned composition, evoking the brilliant world of landed knights and the glories and bloody realities of battle. - Publisher.