Description
Book SynopsisExplores what the interrogations reveal about the individual and communal lives of those interrogated and how the interrogations themselves shaped villagers' perceptions of those lives. This book shows how heretical and orthodox beliefs flourished side by side and what life was like in one particular time and place.
Trade Review"This is an attractive and readable book on a sombre theme."--Colin Morris, Times Literary Supplement "Pegg has written a very vivid account of the society of the Lauragais and its response to the 'good men' at a time when their heresy was still flourishing. No comparable study of the impact the heretics had on lay society in a defined area has been published."--Bernard Hamilton, American Historical Review "Pegg's book [is] provocative, colorful, and flowing with adrenaline! There is much to remind one of Carlo Ginzburg's The Cheese and the Worms: the deep reading of one set of interrogations ... the high ambition, and the extraordinary panache with which the project is realized... Pegg has pulled off a tour de force. His book ... is superbly written: as unputdownable as a thriller."--Peter Biller, Speculum "This is a wonderful book deserving to be read from beginning to end. It is a 'good read' that will capture the imagination, and teachers of medieval history should get it into the hands of their students."--Jay T. Lees, History "This book is a gem... What is included is no less than brilliant, for this study is an incisive analysis of a major record of inquisitorial proceedings. Strongly recommended."--Thomas Renna, Church History
Table of ContentsACKNOWLEDGMENTS ix 1 Two Hundred and One Days 3 2 The Death of One Cistercian 4 3 Wedged between Catha and Cathay 15 4 Paper and Parchment 20 5 Splitting Heads and Tearing Skin 2 6 Summoned to Saint-Sernin 35 7 Questions about Questions 45 8 Four Eavesdropping Friars 52 9 The Memory of What Was Heard 57 10 Lies 63 11 Now Are You Willing to Put That in Writing? 74 12 Before the Crusaders Came 3 13 Words and Nods 92 14 Not Quite Dead 104 15 One Full Dish of Chestnuts 114 16 Two Yellow Crosses 126 17 Life around a Leaf 131 NOTES 133 BIBLIOGRAPHY OF WORKS CITED 199 INDEX 219
