Montaillou (book)

Montaillou

Author	Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie
Original title	Montaillou, village occitan de 1294 à 1324
Translator	Barbara Bray
Subject	Catharism, history from below, Montaillou
Genre	History, Nonfiction
Published	1975
Published in English	1978

Montaillou (French: Montaillou, village occitan de 1294 à 1324) is a book by the French historian Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie, first published in 1975. It was first translated into English in 1978 by Barbara Bray, and has been subtitled The Promised Land of Error and Cathars and Catholics in a French Village.

Montaillou was Ladurie's "most important and popular work". Ladurie used the inquisitorial records of Jacques Fournier to reconstruct the lives of the inhabitants of Montaillou in the Ariège (at the time, the county of Foix). The work was part of the historical anthropology of the Annales school.

Montaillou examines the lives and beliefs of the villagers of Montaillou, a small village in the Pyrenees with only around 250 inhabitants, at the beginning of the fourteenth century. It is largely based on the Fournier Register, a set of records from the Inquisition which investigated and attempted to suppress the spread of Catharism in the Ariège from 1318 to 1325.

The work is in two parts. The first explores the physical world of the inhabitants of Montaillou, telling the stories of Pierre and Bernard Clergue, two of the most powerful men in Montaillou, and the shepherd Pierre Maury. The second explores the beliefs of the residents of Montaillou: what Annales historians called their mentalité.

Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie is most associated with the Annales School of French historiography, and in the English-speaking world he is one of the best-known Annales historians.

Montaillou has been described as a work of history from below. In its use of records of interrogations as its primary source, it has also been seen as having links with oral history.