ABSTRACT
The most important Catholic chronicler of the Albigensian Crusade is Peter, a Cistercian monk, from the abbey of Les Vaux-de-Cernay, situated about thirty-five kilometres to the south-west of Paris. The abbey had strong connections with the family of Simon of Montfort, who was chosen as leader of the crusade in late August 1209, and Peter accompanied the crusade for much of the time Montfort was in charge, so he was either an eye-witness or gained his information from participants. According to Peter, the fortified town of Lavaur, thirty-seven kilometres to the north-east of Toulouse, was 'the source and origin of every form of heresy'. William of Puylaurens, a cleric from Toulouse who offers an overview of events from a mid-thirteenth-century perspective, even though a much less biased commentator than Peter, was equally provoked. It was a place 'in which through the heretics the Devil had prepared a seat for himself'. I In late March 1211, Simon of Montfort, reinforced by a fresh contingent of crusaders from the north, set out from Carcassonne with the intention of conquering this 'synagogue of Satan'. He had originally planned to besiege the fortress of Cabaret in the Black Mountain just to the north of Carcassonne, but its lord, Peter Roger, despite his reputation as a defender of heretics, had decided that the wiser course would be to submit and had handed over his castle to Simon's companion, Bouchard of Marly. The inhabitants ofLavaur, however, determined to resist. 'In Lavaur', says Peter of Les Vaux-de-
Cernay, 'were the traitor Aimeric, who had been the lord of Montreal, and numerous other knights, enemies of the cross, up to eighty in number, who had entered the place and fortified it against us. The Dame of Lavaur was a widow named Giraude, a heretic of the worst sort and sister to Aimeric.'2
