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Essay on Montaillou
Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie is the French historian who enjoys broad esteem among academicians and affectionate general readers identical for, among other books, his "Montaillou: The Promised Land of Error," published some years ago. No historian's job better exemplifies the change to micro-history than Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie's. He was Braudel's most gleaming student, and his doctoral opinion on the early contemporary province of Languedoc became one of the classic works of the Annales School. He has sporadically attempted other projects on a ostentatious scale, such as a history of climate over the past millennium, however for most of his career he has gravitated irresistibly to the miniature. In 1975, he published an especially glorious work of micro-history called Montaillou: The Promised Land of Error.
Taking advantage of the fact that, in the early fourteenth century, the Inquisition had comprehensively interrogated practically the entire population of the mountainous southern French village of Montaillou on suspicion of heresy, he plumbed its records for information on everything from the villagers' shepherding practices to their (frequent) illicit sexual liaisons and their (infrequent) bathing, to their social relations and religious beliefs, and he wove it all into a beguiling and stunningly vivid tapestry of late medieval life. The book confirmed Le Roy Ladurie's reputation as one of the leading historians of his age band.
The rural community of Montaillou in the south of France is full of heretics. One valiant man, Jacques Fournier, Bishop of Pamiers, embarks on a fearless Inquisition to get free of them. For years, he interviews everyone in the village and keeps meticulous notes. The everyday gossip, scandal and concerns of the common medieval man are documented here in a detail unsurpassed in any other primary source. In this book, French Historian Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie studies these documents and presents an incredible portrait of everyday life.....
