Chanson de la Croisade Albigeoise

The Song of the Albigensian Crusade 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. 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. The original title is Cansó de la crozada ("song of the crusade"). The first critical edition was published with a French translation—Chanson de la croisade contre les albigeois—by Paul Meyer in two volumes (1875–79). Eugène Martin-Chabot published another multi-volume French translation under the title Chanson de la croisade albigeoise. Henri Gougaud used the same title in his single-volume edition of 1992. The Song was finally translated into English (as The Song of the Cathar Wars) by Janet Shirley in 1996.

The first was written by William of Tudela (he names himself in laisses 1 and 9), probably in 1213. It comprises the first 2749 lines, in 130 laisses (rhymed stanzas of varying length), and takes the story to the beginning of 1213. It is strongly partisan, in favour of the Crusaders and against their opponents, the Cathars and southerners in general.

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