"William of Puylaurens' chronicle, here translated into English for the first time, is one of the main contemporary accounts of these events. It describes heresy in the south of France in the early 13th century; provides a narrative of the crusade; and then outlines the growth of the Inquisition and the sustained attack on heresy which followed, including the siege of the Cathar fortress of Montsegur in 1243-44. This translation is accompanied by an introduction, full notes, appendices, and a bibliography."--BOOK JACKET.

The Albigensian crusade 1209-1229) by the Catholic Church against the Cathar heretics of southern France is infamous for its brutality. Marked by massacres and acts of appalling cruelty, these deeds are commonly ascribed to the role of religious fanaticism. This book is the first to offer a dedicated military history of the whole Crusade; in so doing it refutes this old view. By telling the story of the Crusade through its dramatic sieges, battles and campaigns and offering expert analysis of the warfare involved, the author reveals the Crusade in a new light – as a bloody territorial conquest in which acts of terror were perpetrated to secure military aims rather than religious ones. The result is an exciting and at times disturbing book that tells the dramatic military events of the Crusade and its leading characters – Simon de Montfort, Louis the Lion, Innocent III, Peter of Aragon, Count Raymond of Toulouse - through the voices of those contemporary writers who fought it and experienced it.

Spanning countries and centuries, a “how-not-to” guide to leadership that reveals the most maladroit military commanders in history—now in paperback. For this book, fifteen distinguished historians were given a deceptively simple task: identify their choice for the worst military leader in history and then explain why theirs is the worst. From the clueless Conrad von Hötzendorf and George A. Custer to the criminal Baron Roman F. von Ungern-Sternberg and the bungling Garnet Wolseley, this book presents a rogues’ gallery of military incompetents. Rather than merely rehashing biographical details, the contributors take an original and unconventional look at military leadership in a way that appeals to both specialists and general readers alike. While there are plenty of books that analyze the keys to success, The Worst Military Leaders in History offers lessons of failure to avoid. In other words, this book is a “how-not-to” guide to leadership.

An engaging and accessible introduction to the music, poetry, and lives of the medieval singer-songwriters. Composing songs of love and war in medieval Western and Southern Europe, troubadours spanned the social spectrum from powerful nobles to penniless minstrels. This book delves into the everyday worlds of these remarkable poet-musicians, famed for their innovative use of language and music as well as the lasting impact of their work on audiences then and now. The troubadours’ songs explored ideas about courtly love as well as medieval perceptions of gender, class, war, and chivalry. Linda M. Paterson examines the troubadours’ music, performance, and legacy, pairing fresh translations with the original texts to highlight the enduring beauty of their songs and poetry.

The extraordinary life story of an ambitious, thirteenth-century adventurer.

This study reinterprets the relationship between the medieval papacy and independent states, suggesting that kings and governments were able to increase their effective power through close relationships with the international papacy, making the papacy integral to the creation of centralized national states and kingdoms in Europe.

Throughout the history of the Crusades, liturgical prayer, masses, and alms were all marshaled in the fight against Muslim armies. In Invisible Weapons, M. Cecilia Gaposchkin focuses on the ways in which Latin Christians communicated their ideas and aspirations for crusade to God through liturgy, how public worship was deployed, and how prayers and masses absorbed the ideals and priorities of crusading. Placing religious texts and practices within the larger narrative of crusading, Gaposchkin offers a new understanding of a crucial facet in the culture of holy war.