Crusaders and Heretics, Twelfth to Fourteenth Centuries

These articles seek to understand the attitudes and reactions of medieval society to both external threat and internal dissension, whether real or imagined. The crusaders encompass the Templars and the Knights of St Lazarus, members of military orders committed to the cause of perpetual battle for the faith; more reluctant secular knights urged into the complicated conflicts of Latin Greece by the papacy; and peasant enthusiasts from northern France, ultimately turning their frustration on the clergy and the Jews. Heretics range from Cathars, real opponents of the Church, to the lepers, imaginary subverters of society, allegedly in league with the two other perceived enemies of Western Christendom, the Jews and the Muslims.

Contents: The origins of the Order of the Temple; James of Molay, the last Grand Master of the Order of the Temple; Women and Catharism; Lepers, Jews and Moslems: the plot to overthrow Christendom in 1321; The Pastoureaux of 1320; The Templars and the Turin Shroud; The world picture of Philip the Fair; The social context of the Templars; The crusade of the shepherds in 1251; Western attitudes to Frankish Greece in the 13th century; Catharism and the Occitan nobility: the lordships of Cabaret, Minerve and Termes; Supplying the Crusader States: the role of the Templars; The Order of Saint Lazarus and the Crusades; Index.

Malcolm Barber