The Albigensian crusade 1209-1229) by the Catholic Church against the Cathar heretics of southern France is infamous for its brutality. Marked by massacres and acts of appalling cruelty, these deeds are commonly ascribed to the role of religious fanaticism. This book is the first to offer a dedicated military history of the whole Crusade; in so doing it refutes this old view. By telling the story of the Crusade through its dramatic sieges, battles and campaigns and offering expert analysis of the warfare involved, the author reveals the Crusade in a new light - as a bloody territorial conquest in which acts of terror were perpetrated to secure military aims rather than religious ones. The result is an exciting and at times disturbing book that tells the dramatic military events of the Crusade and its leading characters - Simon de Montfort, Louis the Lion, Innocent III, Peter of Aragon, Count Raymond of Toulouse - through the voices of those contemporary writers who fought it and experienced it.

The bloody Albigensian Crusade launched against the Cathar heretics of southern France in the early thirteenth century is infamous for its brutality and savagery, even by the standards of the Middle Ages. It was marked by massacres and acts of appalling cruelty, deeds commonly ascribed to the role of religious fanaticism. Here, in the first military history of the whole conflict, Sean McGlynn tells the story of the crusade through its epic sieges of seemingly impregnable fortresses, desperate battles and destructive campaigns, and offers expert analysis of the warfare involved, revealing the crusade in a different light - as a bloody territorial conquest in which acts of terror were perpetrated to secure military aims rather than religious ones. The dramatic events of the crusade and its colourful leading characters - Simon de Montfort, Louis the Lion, Innocent III, Peter of Aragon, Count Raymond of Toulouse - are brought to life through the voices of contemporary writers who fought and experienced it.

A vivid and original account of warfare in the Middle Ages and the cruelty and atrocity that accompanied it. Sean McGlynn investigates the reality of medieval warfare. For all the talk of chivalry, medieval warfare routinely involved acts which we would consider war crimes. Lands laid waste, civilians slaughtered, prisoners massacred: this was standard fare justified by tradition and practical military necessity. It was unbelievably barbaric, but seldom uncontrolled. Such acts of atrocity were calculated, hideous cruelties inflicted in order to achieve a specific end. Sean McGlynn examines the battles of Acre and Agincourt, sieges like Beziers, Lincoln, Jerusalem and Limoges as well as the infamous chevauchees of the Hundred Years War that devastated great swathes of France. He reveals how these grisly affairs form the origin of accepted 'rules of war', codes of conduct that are today being enforced in the International Court of Justice in the Hague.

150 years after the Norman Conquest, history came within a hair’s breadth of repeating itself. In 1216, taking advantage of the turmoil created in England by King John’s inept rule, Prince Louis of France invaded England and allied with English rebels. The prize was the crown of England. Within months Louis had seized control of one-third of the country, including London. This is the first book to cover the bloody events of the invasion, one of the most dramatic but most overlooked episodes of British history. The text vividly describes the campaigns, sieges, battles and atrocities of the invasion and its colourful leaders – Louis the Lion, King John, William Marshal, and the mercenaries Fawkes de Béauté and Eustace the Monk – to offer the first detailed military analysis of this epic struggle for England.