The History of the Albigensian Crusade : Peter of les Vaux-de-Cernay's `Historia Albigensis'

Rating:
Summary: A thorough book
Review: This book is a translation of a monks latin work on the albigensian crusade (launched 1209). It was actually written during the crusade (1212-1218). It has been translated beautifully and the authors has included many interesting notes about the accuracy of the monks work. If you would like to learns something about the albigensian crusade this book is great as it contains a rather detailed first/second-hand description of the events that led to the crusade as well as the crusade itself. The monk is rather prejudiced (he's a chatholic and the target of the crusade are heretics) but that only add color to the text.

The book is rather hard to read as the monk style of writing is very compact - very much information in little space - not many superfluous words or sentences.