Guillaume de Puylaurens

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Guillaume de Puylaurens , German : Wilhelm von Puylaurens , Occitan : Guilhèm de Puèglaurenç , Latin : Guillelmus de Podio Laurentii (* around 1200; † after 1275) was a French chronicler of the 13th century. His chronicle , written in Latin, describes the history of the Albigensian Crusade .

Guillaume came from Toulouse , where he also studied at the local university and completed his master's degree. He then worked for the bishops of Toulouse , Folquet de Marseille and Raymond du Fauga. In the meantime he was a priest in the municipality of Puylaurens ( Département Tarn ), which is where his name comes from. He later served Count Raymond VII of Toulouse as chaplain and in 1249 was at his deathbed. He then worked for the Inquisition until his own death .

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Probably around the year 1250 Guillaume began to write his work, which is divided into fifty chapters, the Chronica magistri Guillelmi de Podio Laurentii . He began it with a history of Catharism , which he recorded in 1145 with the sermons of Bernard de Clairvaux in Verfeil and with territorial restitutions to Count Roger Bernard III. graduated from Foix in 1275. Guillaume reported on the Albigensian Crusade from a long time lag, but his detailed descriptions suggest that he was an eyewitness to those events or at least had well-informed observers as witnesses. He was also familiar with the contemporary works by Pierre des Vaux-de-Cernay ( Historia Albigensis ) and Guilhem de Tudèla ( Canso de la crozada ), to which he occasionally referred.

In contrast to Pierre des Vaux-de-Cernay, Guillaume dispensed with a tendentious and prejudiced representation and limited himself to a reflected and sober representation of the events. Even if he considered the crusade to be necessary, he did not ignore criticism of the sometimes cruel and greedy warfare of the crusaders.

literature

  • Malcolm Barber: The Cathars. Dualist heretics in Languedoc in the Middle Ages. Longman, London 2000, ISBN 0-582-25662-3 (In German: Die Katharer. Ketzer des Mittelalters. Artemis & Winkler, Düsseldorf et al. 2003, ISBN 3-538-07164-0 ).
  • Jean Duvernoy (Ed.): Chronique. 1203-1275. = Chronica magistri Guillelmi de Podio Laurentii (= Sources d'histoire médiévale. Vol. 8). Center National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris 1976, ISBN 2-222-01810-2 .
  • Michael D. Sibly, William A. Sibly: The chronicle of William of Puylaurens. The Albigensian crusade and its Aftermath. Translated with an introduction, notes, and appendices. Boydell Press, Woodbridge et al. 2003, ISBN 0-85115-925-7 .