Customer Reviews

Cathar Castles: Fortresses of the Albigensian Crusade 1209-1300

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Crusades were not all in the Middle East. These crumbling remnants of fortifications from the 1200s bespeak a time of Christian v. Christian warfare as the Catholic Church tried to stamp out the Cathar movement the establishment considered to be heretical. Today, one can visit all these places, some with short walks, others after more difficult hikes. Part of a now more than 50-volume "Fortress" series from Osprey, this combines an informed text, photos, wonderful color reconstruction (and cutaway) diagrams, data on the places today, and a short reading list. There is not a lot about these structures published in English, making this even more useful. As one who has been in many of these castles, I recommend the book to anyone traveling in the region.

In less then 62 pages, Macus Cowper does a fantastic job going into the details and structures of the major fortresses of the Albigensian Crusade that took up most the 13th century in southern France. The short book centered itself around the castles belonging to Cathars, a heretical movement that took hold in that part of France and subject to a major crusade to wiped it out.

The book comes with a decent background to the Albigensian Crusade how the castles affected the entire campaign as they withstood the crusade before finally falling. Looking at the photos and the illustrations, it took a lot of determination by the invaders to take some of these places. The book comes superbly well illustrated with detail drawings and diagrams of some of the castles, photographs and map of their locations. The text is well written and nicely researched. The author obviously got a pretty good command of the subject and it looks like he visited the actual locations himself.

The book also could serves as a nice historical travel guide as well since the author was kind enough to put in visiting hours and other such material into this book. The book come well recommended and should provide a good companiion piece to a more scholarly work on the Cathar that often come with a lot of words but little illustrations or photos.

Cathar Castles does not go into overwheming detail about the Albigensian Crusade, nor should it...it does supply a nice and very complete background however. It centers, quite sensibly on the Castle's themselves.

Expert artwork by Peter Dennis breaths life into the old Southern French Fortresses, the works are clear and vivid...and magnificently detailed. A very descriptive narrative by Marcus Cowper complements the illustrations...or they complement each other, that would be more to the point. Everything is explained including a nice conclusion on visiting these Castle's today.

A very nice 'fit' into Osprey's rather large collection of Castle's, Forts, Strongholds and Defenses that existed in many lands through the centuries.