The Albigensian Crusade

Until the early 12th century, Languedoc was a principality semi-independent from the French Church and State. It supported rich cultural traditions of its own, one of which was albigensianism, a heresy of Eastern origin which believed that the world had been created by some evil spirit. In 1208 the Papal authorities had had enough and launched a crusade against these infidels. Over the next 20 or more years the region was subjected to bloody battle and rigorous inquisition as all traces of dissent were put down. This subjugation created the records from which Sumption is able to piece together the tenets of this strange medieval religion, the flavour of Mediterranean life in the high Middle Ages and the brutality of religious war in the great age of the crusades. (Kirkus UK)