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Montaillou: The Promised Land of Error (Paperback)

~ (Author), Barbara Bray (Translator) "Montaillou is not large parish..." (more)
Key Phrases: understanding ofgood, other domus, two parfaits, Pierre Maury, Pierre Clergue, Bernard Clergue (more...)

4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (18 customer reviews)

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7 new from $21.58 82 used from $0.01 3 collectible from $18.15

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Hardcover Available from these sellers. Published May 31, 1978	Hardcover	--	$35.00	$0.01
Paperback $13.57 In Stock. Published October 28, 2008	Paperback	$13.57	$12.08	$8.38
Paperback Available from these sellers. Published July 12, 1979	Paperback, July 12, 1979	--	$21.58	$0.01
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Editorial Reviews

Product Description

"Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie has had a success which few historians experience and which is usually reserved for the winner of the Prix Goncourt...Montaillou, which is the reconstruction of the social life of a medieval village, has been acclaimed by the experts as a masterpiece of ethnographic history and by the public as a sensational revelation of the thoughts, feelings, and activities of the ordinary people of the past."—Times Literary Supplement

With a new introduction by author Le Roy Ladurie, this special edition offers a fascinating history of a fourteenth-century village, Montaillou, in the mountainous region of southern France, almost destroyed by internal feuds and religious heterodoxy. Ladurie's portrait is based on a detailed register of Jacques Fournier, Bishop of Pamiers and future Pope Benedict XII, who conducted rigorous inquisition into heresy within his diocese. Fournier was a consummate inquisitor, an acute psychologist who was able to elicit from the accused the innermost secrets of their thoughts and actions. He was pitiless in the pursuit of error, and meticulous in recording that pursuit.

LeRoy Ladurie analyzes the behavior, demography, social mentality, and cosmology of the community of peasants and shepherds, and vividly evokes the daily life of the village and mountain pastures. His portrait of Montaillou is dominated by the personal histories of two men: the curé Pierre Clergue, a brutal and powerful man who placed his enemies in the hands of the inquisitor; and the shepherd Pierre Maury, a friend of the Albigensian perfecti and a fatalist who returned from Spain to disappear in the inquisitor's prison in his own country. Montaillou, which has received even more praise than LeRoy Ladurie's earlier work, provides a portrait of a fascinating place with a dark, intriguing history. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Language Notes

Text: English, French (translation)

Product Details

Paperback: 383 pages
Publisher: Vintage; Rep. Wraps edition (July 12, 1979)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0394729641
ISBN-13: 978-0394729640
Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.2 x 1 inches
Shipping Weight: 12.6 ounces

Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (18 customer reviews)

Amazon.com Sales Rank: #528,136 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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More About the Authors

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Will Barnet

Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie

Inside This Book (learn more)

First Sentence:
Montaillou is not large parish. Read the first page

Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
understanding ofgood, other domus, two parfaits, migrant shepherds, own domus, yellow cross, paternal house, livres tournois, present department, other shepherds

Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Pierre Maury, Pierre Clergue, Bernard Clergue, Beatrice de Planissoles, Prades Tavernier, Comte de Foix, Raymond Pierre, Guillaume Maurs, Jacques Fournier, Guillemette Maury, Jean Maury, Arnaud Sicre, Fournier Register, Guillemette Benet, Guillaume Belot, Bernard Marty, Arnaud Vital, Guillaume Austatz, Raymonde Arsen, Guillaume Benet, Gauzia Clergue, Jean Pellissier, San Mateo, Bernard Belot, Raymond Belot

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Citations (learn more)

This book cites 100 books:

Surveys from Exile: Political Writings, Vol. 2 (Penguin Classics) by Karl Marx in Back Matter (1), Back Matter (2), and Back Matter (3)
The First International and After: Political Writings, Vol. 3 (Penguin Classics) by Karl Marx in Back Matter (1), Back Matter (2), and Back Matter (3)
China: The Revolution Continued by Jan Myrdal in Back Matter (1), Back Matter (2), and Back Matter (3)
Early Writings (Marx Library) by Karl Marx in Back Matter (1), Back Matter (2), and Back Matter (3)
Karl Marx: Man and Fighter (Pelican) by Boris Nicolaievsky in Back Matter (1), Back Matter (2), and Back Matter (3)

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100 books cite this book:

The Household and the Making of History: A Subversive View of the Western Past by Mary S. Hartman on page 111, page 115, and page 144
History, Theory, Text: Historians and the Linguistic Turn by Elizabeth A. Clark on page 77, and Back Matter
Boundaries: The Making of France and Spain in the Pyrenees by Peter Sahlins on page 105, and Back Matter
The Light-Green Society: Ecology and Technological Modernity in France, 1960-2000 by Michael Bess in Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
Witchcraze: A New History of the European Witch Hunts by Anne L. Barstow in Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)

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Customer Reviews

18 Reviews

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3 star:		(1)
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4.3 out of 5 stars (18 customer reviews)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

68 of 69 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars I Defend 'Montaillou'!, July 10, 2000

By	Amanda HALE (Paris France) - See all my reviews

Having read many of the reviews of 'Montaillou' at Amazon.com, I feel compelled to put fingers to keyboard in defence of this marvellous book. I have read both the original French version AND this most recent translation, and feel that the flavour, color, atsmosphere and historical accuracy lose NOTHING in translation. As to the footnotes, etc - 'Montaillou' is, first and foremost, an ACADEMIC book. It is not a 'light read', and if Le Roy Ladurie is sometimes a little pedantic with his footnotes and cross-references, it is because he is an academic whose chief aim is to adhere as closly as possible to the historical data he is working with. I think that potential readers might be a little 'put off' by some of the critisisms of the Amazon reviewers, yet if they approach 'Montaillou' with the knowledge that it IS an academic work and not a 'novel', then they won't be disappointed. In saying this, 'Montaillou' would work WONDERFULLY as a novel - all the elements are already in place for a beautifully rich and romantic tale of the Middle Ages - but until 'Montaillou - The Novel' is written, we must content ourselves with this sound, insightful and ultimately fulfilling ACADEMIC book.

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49 of 55 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Readable, Entertaining Scholarship, November 28, 1999

By	Sebastian Good (Houston, TX) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

The year is 1300, and the village of Montaillou in the south of France is full of heretics. One brave man, Jacques Fournier, Bishop of Pamiers, embarks on a brave Inquisition to get rid of them. For years, he interviews everyone in the village and keeps meticulous notes. The everyday gossip, scandal and concerns of the common medieval man are documented here in a detail unsurpassed in any other primary source. In this book, French Historian Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie studies these documents and presents an incredible portrait of everyday life: 'love and marriage, gestures and emotions, conversations and gossip, clans and factions, crime and violence, concepts of time and space, attitudes to the past, animals, magic and folklore, death and beliefs about the other world.' An astounding book sitting on the border between history and anthropology. And as expected, the French have been fall-down funny for centuries. [HistoryHouse.com]

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14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Outstanding case studies of commoners' lives., May 14, 2002

By	Cas (the Idaho mountains) - See all my reviews

This is definitely academic reading. Concerning itself chiefly with a cluster of tiny villages in the extreme south of France, the book takes details of villagers' confessions to the Inquisition to show what life was like for them. I found it to be very well-written, lucid, and not difficult to digest.

Ladurie (Amazon misspells his name continually as "Ladruie" -- either that or the book cover misspells it) extrapolates some amazing things from these confessions. Ideas of time and space, how villagers thought of the home and the family, concepts of sexuality and social status.. there's a lot here, extensively footnooted and extensively supported. As someone's said, this is definitely not light reading.

Ladurie spends quite a bit of time talking about religion, which is logical considering that Inquisition files are his source material. I did not detect a bias against either Catholicism or Catharism. Since his focus isn't actually religion, however, but an allover view of life in a remote, isolated 14th-century French/Spanish village, I wouldn't consider this specifically a resource for the study of Catharism. It is, however, an excellent resource for understanding people in a remote, isolated 14th-century French/Spanish village.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Just what I wanted
This is chock-filled with facts about the Cathars in a certain region of France, circa 1300-1328. Just what I needed. Sandy A.

Published 3 months ago by Sandy A

4.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating and entertaining
Life in the Middle Ages. A fascinating account of ordinary life. While reading, one discovers just how many assumptions one has regarding life in the Middle Ages. Read more

Published 15 months ago by Lennart Edzer Nooij

5.0 out of 5 stars Montaillou: The Promised Land of Error (Purchased on 05/15/2008)
This book is extremely interesting and fills in the day to day lives of these Cathares with specific names and events. Very useful for my research.

Published 17 months ago by Giselle Embry

5.0 out of 5 stars Time travel into a different reality.
This is one of THE most important books for anyone interested in the varieties of the human mind. Thanks to the compulsive thoroughness of an early 14th century inquisitor (a... Read more

Published on August 22, 2007 by Fernand Raynaud

5.0 out of 5 stars In 1320 would you have worn a yellow cross on your chest?
This book is for those who enjoy reading serious historical and anthropological studies; for those who delight in asking how did our predecessors live? Read more

Published on February 24, 2006 by Ladyce West

5.0 out of 5 stars Everyday Life 700 Years Ago, With the Compliments of the Inquisition
Every once in a while, some terrible act results in good. For example, the same Spanish bishop -- Diego de Landa -- who burned the irreplaceable writings of the Mayans wrote a... Read more

Published on November 1, 2005 by James Paris

5.0 out of 5 stars Important and a good read
In my historiography classes this book has been lauded and used as an example of a new form of history-writing: a complete discription of a village and all it's aspects: religion,... Read more

Published on December 15, 2003 by M. Buisman

5.0 out of 5 stars Disgustingly Good...
This book was a very good look at the early Church. In school I was always taught that the first Christain group to rebel againt the Catholics, was Martin Luther's people. Read more

Published on February 2, 2003 by C. Loomis

1.0 out of 5 stars Biased
This is not an impartial work. It is clear from the introduction that the author is a Catholic apologist for the Inquisition and despises all hertics and infidels. Read more

Published on April 9, 2002 by Not a Clue

5.0 out of 5 stars Down and Dirty
Montaillou was a little village up in the foothills of the Pyrenees in the Middle Ages. The Cathar heresy took root there, so the Church sent in an inquisitor who was an unusually... Read more

Published on January 9, 2002 by Douglas Harper

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