The Corruption of Angels

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Inspiring book that deserves to be read from cover to cover. - Rated
For anyone who's into history that's beautifully written and totally engaging, this book is a definite must. Pegg's passionate account is based upon the single surviving manuscript that documents the massive unprecedented inquiry held in the Lauragais by the Dominican inquisitors Bernart de Caux and Jean de Saint-Pierre from 1245-6. Over a period of two hundred and one days, these men carried out an investigation into all those who had reached the age of reason (14 for men and 12 for women). Recorded in the manuscript - itself only a fragment of the much larger records produced during the investigation - are the details of over five thousand ordinary men, women and what would today be seen as children, all of whom were brought into the cloisters of the Saint-Sernin abbey to give testimony about their dealings with members of alleged 'heretical' sects. From this, Pegg constructs a wonderfully vivid image of life in southern France in the mid-thirteenth century and, furthermore, provides some unique insights - which themselves often approach the unorthodox -into the natures of the heretical movements that are so frequently grouped under the banner of 'Catharism' in modern scholarship.
Despite its value to the student of medieval heresy, this is also a wonderfully crafted and strikingly written book that can hardly fail to be appreciated by anyone with a love for history and for fascinating books.