Song of the Albigensian Crusade

Louis VIII of France capturing Marmande, from the sole surviving manuscript of the Song of the Albigensian Crusade

The Song of the Albigensian Crusade[1] is an Old Occitan epic poem narrating events of the Albigensian Crusade from March 1208 to June 1219. Modelled on the Old French chanson de geste, it was composed in two distinct parts: William of Tudela wrote the first towards 1213, and an anonymous continuator finished the account. However, recent studies have proposed the troubadour Gui de Cavalhon as the author of the second part.[2] It is one of three major contemporary narratives of the Albigensian Crusade, the Historia Albigensis of Pierre des Vaux-de-Cernay and the Chronica of William of Puylaurens being the others.

There is a single surviving manuscript of the whole Song (fr. 25425 in the Bibliothèque nationale), written in or around Toulouse about 1275.

  1. ^ Original title, in Old Occitan: Canso de la crozada, modern Occitan: Cançon de la Crosada, known in French as: Chanson de la croisade albigeoise, 'Fauriel (1837) supplied the title Aiso es la cansos de la crozada contr els ereges d albeges, a (faulty) reconstruction of Old Occitan by the editor himself (Meyer 1875, p. ii)
  2. ^ Saverio Guida, "L'autore della seconda parte della Canso de la crotzada", in Cultura Neolatina, LXIII, 2003, pp. 255–282.