Peter of Vaux de Cernay (died c.1218) was a

Cistercian The Cistercians, () officially the Order of Cistercians ( la, (Sacer) Ordo Cisterciensis, abbreviated as OCist or SOCist), are a Catholic religious order of monks and nuns that branched off from the Benedictines and follow the Rule of Saint ...

monk of Vaux-de-Cernay Abbey, in what is now

Yvelines Yvelines () is a department in the western part of the Île-de-France region in Northern France. In 2019, it had a population of 1,448,207.Albigensian Crusade The Albigensian Crusade or the Cathar Crusade (; 1209–1229) was a military and ideological campaign initiated by Pope Innocent III to eliminate Catharism in Languedoc, southern France. The Crusade was prosecuted primarily by the French crown ...

. His ''Historia Albigensis'' is one of the primary sources for the events of that crusade. The chronicle is thought to have been written from 1212 to 1218, recounting events which were principally those of 1203 to 1208, but also later events, at some of which Peter himself was present as eyewitness.Peter of les Vaux de Cernay and the ''History of the Albigensian Crusade'' (''Historia Albigensis'')
anonymous article from a ''pro-Cathar'' website. Retrieved 2010-12-19. His uncle

Guy of Vaux-de-Cernay Guy (died 21 March 1223) was the sixth Cistercian abbot of Vaux-de-Cernay from 1181 until 1210 and then the bishop of Carcassonne from 1212 until his death. The crusades dominated his life. He was a preacher, organizer and spiritual leader of the F ...

was his abbot, bishop of Carcassonne for some years from 1212, and a preacher brought in earlier to preach against

Catharism Catharism (; from the grc, καθαροί, katharoi, "the pure ones") was a Christian dualist or Gnostic movement between the 12th and 14th centuries which thrived in Southern Europe, particularly in northern Italy and southern France. Follow ...

Simon de Montfort, 5th Earl of Leicester {{Infobox noble , name = Simon de Montfort , title = 5th Earl of Leicester , image = File:Simon4demontfort.gif , caption = Seal of Simon de Montfort, depicting him riding a horse and blowing a h ...

. Peter had also followed the early

Fourth Crusade The Fourth Crusade (1202–1204) was a Latin Christian armed expedition called by Pope Innocent III. The stated intent of the expedition was to recapture the Muslim-controlled city of Jerusalem, by first defeating the powerful Egyptian Ayyubid S ...

, with Guy, as far as

Zara, Dalmatia Zadar ( , ; historically known as Zara (from Venetian and Italian: ); see also other names), is the oldest continuously inhabited Croatian city. It is situated on the Adriatic Sea, at the northwestern part of Ravni Kotari region. Zadar serv ...

. They joined Simon perhaps in 1210, and Peter likely knew Simon personally. His writing is generally considered partisan, taking the Catholic side, but also to be more objective in reporting Cathar beliefs and actions than some of the hunters of heresy.

Steven Runciman Sir James Cochran Stevenson Runciman ( – ), known as Steven Runciman, was an English historian best known for his three-volume ''A History of the Crusades'' (1951–54). He was a strong admirer of the Byzantine Empire. His history's negative ...

gives examples in which Peter's discussion of Cathar theology is presumably accurate, or, exaggerated for propaganda effect.Runciman, ''The Medieval Manichee'' p. 177. The chronicle was not written after 1218, and it is suggested that Peter’s death shortly after that year may be the reason.

References

*Pascal Guébin and Ernest Lyon (1939), ''Petri Vallium Sarnaii monachi Hystoria albigensis'' *Pascal Guébin and Henri Maisonneuve (1951), ''Histoire albigeoise'' (three volumes) *W. A. Sibly and M. D. Sibly, ''History of the Albigensian Crusade: Peter of les Vaux-de-Cernay's 'Historia Albigensis (1998) *C. M. Kurpiewski, ''Writing beneath the shadow of heresy: the Historia Albigensis of Brother Pierre des Vaux-de-Cernay'', Journal of Medieval History 31 (2005), 1, pp. 1–27,

Notes

External links

''Siege of Termes (1210)'', from the Siblys' translation of chapter 7 of ''Historia Albigensis''
in

Migne Jacques Paul Migne (; 25 October 1800 – 24 October 1875) was a French priest who published inexpensive and widely distributed editions of theological works, encyclopedias, and the texts of the Church Fathers, with the goal of providing a u ...

Patrologia Latina The ''Patrologia Latina'' (Latin for ''The Latin Patrology'') is an enormous collection of the writings of the Church Fathers and other ecclesiastical writers published by Jacques-Paul Migne between 1841 and 1855, with indices published between ...

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

. * {{Authority control 13th-century French historians French Cistercians French chroniclers French Christian monks Christians of the Fourth Crusade People of the Albigensian Crusade