The Occitan War: A Military and Political History of the Albigensian Crusade, 1209–1218 by Laurence W. Marvin (review)

REVIEWS 310 pages to follow. What’s more, alongside his descriptions are included seven images (by Clouet and others) depicting central figures in Marguerite’s life. Indeed, so well-written and practical is this parcours that teachers of Marguerite may well wish to adopt this text simply for the material’s quality of presentation . Divided into seven sections, six of them poetic, the body of the text is comprised of a judicious selection of some of Marguerite’s finest works, each introduced in a few brief paragraphs and presented in an easy-to-read parallel format (the original French to the left, the English translation to the right). Beginning with four poetic epistles, exchanged within the Valois court (written to Marguerite’s mother Louise de Savoy, her brother king François I, her second husband Henri d’Albret, and, finally, her daughter the future Jeanne de Bourbon ), the volume continues to maintain a certain sense of chronology and fidelity to her own 1547 collected works, as it progresses through her sacred poetic writings (Le miroir de l’âme pécheresse, La coche, La fable du faux cuyder, and her Chansons spirituelles) before moving to secular verse (in La comédie de Mont-de-Marsan) and concluding with the prologue and four nouvelles from the Heptameron (once again, the selected tales are those that support Patricia Cholakian’s thesis). Prudently deciding against the impossible task of rendering rhyme, rhythm, rhetoric, stylistics, etc., the translators opted to simply paraphrase the meaning of Marguerite’s verse—which, considering the epistemological divide between Renaissance French and modern English is, in itself, no simple task. A boon of parallel translation, nothing is lost as those with the ability to read French can still appreciate the formal elements and are even invited to engage in their own analyses. As far as the translations are concerned, while one can always find room to bicker over nuances, both Cholakian and Skemp do excellent work in their English renderings. With this volume, in the company of Chicago’s excellent Louise Labé volume (2006) and the announced Pernette du Guillet collection , the finest poetesses of the French Renaissance are made available to an English-speaking audience. Its bulk in size is justified and surpassed by the wealth of knowledge contained within its pages. ROBERT J. HUDSON, French & Italian, Brigham Young University Laurence W. Marvin, The Occitan War: A Military and Political History of the Albigensian Crusade, 1209–1218 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2008) xxvi + 328 pp. Those familiar with America’s pastime know that batters will sometimes linger at home plate to relish their home runs. A quick check to the baseball rulebook reveals that this momentary admiration of their work is not an infraction of any rules. However, most fans as well as the opposing team know that in baseball’s unwritten code this reveals far more grievous sins of the heart, namely: gloating , not hustling, and poor sportsmanship. This scenario is analogous to Marvin’s aim in his new book on the political and military history of the Albigensian Crusade. He argues that in the medieval era rules for war were seldom written down, but that everyone knew when infractions had been committed . Works on the Albigensian Crusade, both scholarly and popular, often paint the crusade as particularly brutal, bloody, and uncouth, even by medieval REVIEWS 311 standards. Marvin offers a corrective with his central argument, that “on a medieval scale of brutality the Occitan War does not stand out as particularly barbarous compared to warfare elsewhere in western Europe at this time” (22). As the title suggests, this book analyzes the military campaigns, and to a lesser extent the political situation, in southern France from 1209 to 1218. Following an introduction that covers the medieval world prior to the crusade— including heresy, the political situation in the south of France, warfare in western Europe, logistics, and a brief discussion of the main narrative sources for the crusade—there are nine chapters that examine the various campaigns, with a chapter for each year between 1209 and 1218. Simon de Montfort occupies the pride of place in the narrative, which is further punctuated by the monograph ’s conclusion upon...