This haphazard collection of titles seen on the websites and in libraries provides an itroduction to Languedoc and the history of the region. The list is dominated by books about the Albigensian (or 4th) Crusade and Cathars. A good introductin to that topic is an essay in the New Yorker, issue 2001-08-06,
"Good and Evil" by
Joan Acocella. Recommended as the first reading.
Michelin Guide recommends only one title: "Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes" by Robert Louis Stevenson. Written in 1878, it is the tale of the author's 12-day journey through the untamed Cevennes in the company of stubborn and temperamental Modestine. It is not an "action-packed" tale. The author stops in small villages, meets people, stays in a monastery and has many religious discussions defending his (protestant) faith. It is written with gusto of a young man immensely enjoying his 'adventure'.
A delightful traveller's tale is "South of Toulouse" by Andrew Shirley. This erudite and slightlu quirky English writer visited the region in mid 1950's and described the landscape before the tourist invasion of the last half century.
Another traveller's tale with a bit more history is "Chasing the heretics" by Rion Klawinski. This young American writer is a self-professed lapsed Catholic who still considers Cathars as "heretics" and implies that they got what they deserved. His enthusiasm is charming as in "...for I had fallen in complete love with Toulouse ... seeing Toulouse through the eyes of an idiot lover whose judgment has been burned to a crisp by the first flashes of blinding romance." [p.113]
For historically minded, the classic tale of the Albigensian Crusade is "Massacre at Montsegur: A History of the Albigensian Crusade" by Zoë Oldenburg, a French historian and writer of Historical novels. The book is a bit heavy going in places, esp. the first two chapters discussing theology of Catharism. Never-the less, this classic, first published in 1959 and most recently reprinted in 1998, is a must for anybody seriously interested in Cathars. The facts collected in this book are exploited by most subsequent publications.
While Oldenburg describes the beginnings of the persecution of the Cathars, "The Yellow Cross: The story of the Last Cathars 1290-1329" by Rene Weis describes the last stage. In systematic waves of brutal persecution, thousands of Cathars were captured, summarily tried, and burned at the stake as heretics. Yet so ardent was their faith that during the years 1290 to 1329, the Cathar religion flowered one more time. The book tells the dramatic and moving story of these thirty years, offering a rich medieval tale of faith, adventure, sex and courage. Based on preserved records of the inquisition, this is a detailed portrait of the last gasp of the movement and the day-to-day lives of the individual Cathars in their villages.
Covering the same subject as the above two titles, but with a much lighter hand, is "Ockham's Razor: A search for Wonder in an Age of Doubt" by Wade Rowland, a Canadian writer who describes his travels through Cathar country while teaching his two teenage children the values of life. The book is full of philosophy as the writer is interested in perception of reality in the Medieval as well as our times.
"The Royal Road to Romance" by Richard Halliburton. Rowland (above) called Halliburton the greatest American travel writer.
"[Halliburton blew in to Carcassonne late in 1921] ... on that glittering November evening I left the modern ville basse on foot, crossed the seven-hundred-year-old bridge over the river that separates the fortress from the modern town, looked up the sharp escarpment, and behold, before my eyes, nine centuries disappeared. I became an anachronism, a twentieth-century American living in eleventh-century France..."
"The Treasure of Montsegur: A Novel of the Cathars" by Sophy Burnham is a historical novel and as such pure fiction. It is based on facts (as presented in the above books) and it is a painless introduction to the gruesome story of the Cathar persecution. The story is well written and an easy read,
Another novel published in France in 1996 is :"Le voyage à travers le Midi de la France par le Canal des Deux mers, en 1787 de Thomas Jefferson, ambassadeur des Etats Unis en France à cette époque" by Pierre Gerard. I do not know if this bnook is available in English.
The present interest in Cathars can be traced to the publication of "The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail " by Baigent, Michael, Richard Leigh, and Henry Lincoln in 1982. The book became an international best-seller by linking the story of Cathars to an obscure organization called the Priory of Zion, Knights Templars and other secret medieval societies. The book's claims are based on ancient documents discovered in 1885 in Renne-les-Château, not far from Carcassonne. The document led an obscure priest to mysterious treasures of some sort though he took its secrets to his grave. The search for these treasures, led by
Ian Campbell, an English surveyor, is continuing to this day.
