The posts I'm working on right now

I’m currently working on four related posts.  These will be the first of my major historiographical comparisons.  I'm examining the four major authors of the three primary sources on the crusade: Peter of Les Vaux de Cernay, William of Tudela, the Anonymous, and William of Puylaurens.  For each, I will present first what they said about themselves (if anything) and then how later historians have described them in terms of their biography, their bias, their reliability and their patronage. 

The secondary sources I am using for this so far are Shirley, as translator of the Canso de la Crozada, the Siblys as translators of The Chronicle of William of Puylaurens, and of the Historia Albigensis of Peter Les Vaux de Cernay, Pegg in A Most Holy War, Oldenbourg in Massacre at Montsegur, Graham-Leigh in The Southern French Nobility and the Albigensian Crusade, Marvin in The Occitan War, Barber in The Cathars, Tyerman in God's War, Sumption in The Albigensian Crusade and (very briefly) Maudale in The Albigensian Crusade.

It is important to begin the exploration of differing views in historiography with differing views on the authors of the primary sources, since the decision to favour one narrative of the crusade over another is often correlated with the decision to favour one source over another.  Whether the choice of perspective comes first and informs the historian about the source, or whether the opinion on the source comes first and informs the historian’s perspective is perhaps impossible to distinguish.  Nonetheless, this is a crucial starting point to which I will refer in the historiographical posts to follow.

For example, consider Tyerman, in God’s War, who writes:

“Bernard of Cazenac and his wife Elise - a `second Jezebel`- conducted a reign of terror in the Dordogne valley in the years to 1214, including leaving 150 mutilated men and women in the Benedictine abbey of Sarlat with hands cut off, feet amputated and eyes put out. Elise specialized in removing women`s thumbs to prevent them working and ordering the nipples of the poorest peasant women to be ripped off.  Behind such lurid sadism lay a sustained attempt by this noble couple to preserve their independence.  One critic of the invaders portrayed Bernard as an epitome of chivalry.”⁶⁷ (pp. 592-593)

Neither this incident, nor its principals, appear elsewhere in his book and only in the footnote do we see that Peter Les Vaux de Cernay was his source.  Other historians, as we shall see in later posts, dismiss this incident as fantastical propaganda from an unreliable source but Tyerman presents it uncritically, without mentioning that Peter Les Vaux de Cernay is the only person ever to record this incident, or that there is disagreement as to whether it occurred.  Tyerman does point out that “one critic of the invaders” showed Bernard in a positive light, but does not comment on who it was, or note that this positive portrayal certainly did not include the “lurid sadism” which he has accepted as true.  Tyerman’s footnote only references Peter Les Vaux de Cernay, but the “one critic” he refers to is almost certainly the Anonymous of the Canso de la Crozada who describes Bernard of Cazenac as follows:

“And now a glory shone in the town, a defender bringing back colour and life, for Sir Bernard of Cazenac arrived at the sanctuary.  He came to protect Toulouse and brought with him a fine company and his own staunch courage.  Never have I see a more active knight, as fair-minded as he is powerful, renowned for good sense, generosity and the heart of an emperor, a man who rules paratge and commands valour.  He came as a friend to help Toulouse and its count, to restore justice and banish grief.”-- laisse 199

Clearly, it does not sound as if the Anonymous or his intended audience are aware of Bernard and Elise’s supposed atrocities. The decision to accept these horrors as fact and to pass them on as such to his readers is not just a choice to ignore the Anonymous, it must also be closely related to Tyerman’s also-contested view of the credibility of Peter Les Vaux de Cernay:

“Peter of Les Vaux-de-Cernay, nephew of Abbot Guy, wrote a detailed and well-informed contemporary account of the crusades, often as an eyewitness.”(p. 586)

 In order to examine historiographical choices such as these, therefore, I must first begin by presenting the historians’ statements about the authors of the sources.