A cleric and author of a chronicle dealing with the history of the struggle against the Cathar heresy in southern France.
William was born around 1201 in the region of Toulouse, and around 1228 he is found in the entourage of Fulk of Marseilles, bishop of Toulouse. By 1237 he had become vicar of Puylaurens; from 1237 he served Fulk’s successor, Raymond de Fauga, and from 1241 was chaplain to Raymond VII, count of Toulouse. William’s chronicle, which was completed between 1273 and 1276, covers the period from around 1145 to 1275, dealing with the preaching missions against the Cathars, the Albigensian Crusade (1209-1229), and the work of the Inquisition in the archbishopric of Nar-bonne and the dioceses of Albi, Rodez, Cahors, and Agen, as well as related events in Aragon and Provence. Three chapters also give an account of the crusades of Louis IX of France to Egypt (1248-1254) and Tunis (1270-1272). William died around the year 1276.
-Alan V. Murray
Bibliography
The Chronicle of William of Puylaurens: The Albigensian Crusade and Its Aftermath, trans. W. A. Sibly and M. D. Sibly (Woodbridge, UK: Boydell, 2003).
Dossat, Yves, “La ‘Chronique’ de Guillaume de Puylaurens,” Annales de Bretagne et des Pays du Quest 87 (1980), 259-266.
Guillaume de Puylaurens, Chronique (Chronica magistri Guillelmi de Podio Laurentii), ed. and trans. Jean Duvernoy (Paris: C. N.R. S., 1976).
World History
