Canso de la crotzada

This Occitan song recounting the Albigensian Crusade (1209-29), waged ostensibly against Catharism, is an incomplete epic poem of 9, 582 lines, the work of two authors. The first third, covering the period 1204-July 1213, is by a Navarrese priest residing in Montauban, Guilhem de Tudela, who condemns heresy but also brutality on either side. The remainder, an anonymous continuation to June 1219 begun the previous year, while upholding orthodoxy, expresses attachment to the southern cause and the future Count Raymond VII of Toulouse. Though factually accurate, the account shows selective bias.

[Peter Davies]