Customer Reviews

Power & Purity: Cathar Heresy in Medieval Italy

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With exceptional clarity Professor Carol Lansing profiles the lives and underlying social climate facing everyday Cathars in the medieval town of Orvieto. Scavenging from a paucity of first-hand documentation, Professor Lansing skillfully weaves together a factual vista, based on anecdotal testimonies researched in Italian archives, on medieval Cathar life in Italy. The book is enjoyable to read on a number of fronts, above all, Lansing writes in a factual yet entertaining manner. There are a number of historical curiosities that grace the pages. Far from exercising a categorically defined homogenous faith system Lansing portrays Cathar life in Medieval Orvieto as a heterogeneous community comprising a varying and often contradictory belief system that combined forms of Manichean dualism along with Apostolic Christianity as well as strong Catholic influences. It seems there was an important cleft in degrees of religious belief and practice that separated lay Cathars from Perfects who appeared to epitomize the full faith of Catharism in docrtrine and praxis. Power and Purity is a fascinating read that provides a valuable contribution to this rare and often overlooked historical subject.

I already knew quite a lot about the French Cathars, but nothing about the Italian connection. This is a superb book which I enjoyed very much.

I bought this used book from Excellentext, which described the book's condition as "good." When it arrived I noticed that it had been heavily underscored with a pink flourescent marker and was also full of sticky notes pasted to various pages. I think the seller should have indicated the markings and I would have chosen another supplier's copy of the book. Badly done, I think.