Pegg's narrative of the massacres of the crusades - a fervour of 'cleansing' the world of heresy, and a fear that Christendom was being eaten away by heretics - is gripping. Innocent III's holy genocidal war fundamentally changed how Western civilization dealt with individuals accused of corrupting society, and led to the creation of the inquisition.



The Albigensian Crusade, the first in which Christians were promised salvation for killing other Christians, lasted twenty bloody years--a long savage war for the soul of Christendom. In A Most Holy War, historian Mark Pegg has produced a swift-moving, gripping narrative of this horrific crusade. Pegg draws in part on thousands of testimonies collected by inquisitors in the years 1235 to 1245, accounts of ordinary men and women remembering what it was like to live through such brutal times. In responding to heresy with a holy genocidal war, Innocent III fundamentally changed how Western civilization dealt with individuals accused of corrupting society. This change, Pegg argues, led directly to the creation of the inquisition, the rise of an anti-Semitism, and even the holy violence of the Reconquista in Spain. "A bold, erudite, engaging, and superbly written study of what has long been one of the most central topics in medieval and Mediterranean history." --Teofilo F. Ruiz, Professor of History, UCLA