This reviewer heartily agrees with Sparks's call to discard the artificial divide, perpetuated by modern historians, between 'sacred and profane, religious and secular,' as well as between 'good men' and 'believers,' in favor of a more modulated and contextualized consideration of religion as lived, practiced, and believed in an individual, familial, and social context.
SPECULUM
[P]resents convincing insights ... Read moreinto the known facts about the Cathar heresy in southern France's Languedoc region.
JOURNAL OF RELIGION
Sparks' bottom-up history unearths the Cathar beliefs and practices that rhythmed the everyday life of men and women in Languedoc from their birth to their death, and in doing so, exposes the complex social networks that sustained the Cathar faith and its leaders.
CONFRATERNITAS
[A]n excellent, original book on a much discussed but still important topic of the European Middle Ages. As it covers most of the inquisitorial records of the Languedoc prior till 1320s it is also a compulsory reading and reference for those studying heresy and inquisition of the southern France-and wholeheartedly recommended to anyone interested in religion, laity, and life cycle in the Middle Ages.
COMITATUS
Sparks' book provides a valuable survey of religious practice in the Languedoc, clearly demonstrating the impact that crusade and inquisition had on religious life and illustrating religious life in the Languedoc in all its messy complexity.
THE MEDIEVAL REVIEW
This is a well-researched and nicely written book which collates a wealth of detail to offer a fresh perspective on the social and religious history of thirteenth and fourteenth-century France. In a historiography recently marked by debates over definition, and more recently ethics, Chris Sparks offers a diplomatic and cordial intervention.
H-FRANCE
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