On the tombstone of Count Raimon VI. the following two lines, in Provençal, were engraved:— Non y a homes sus terra, per gran senhor que fos, Quem gites de ma terra, si la glieza non fos; that is—‘No man on earth, how great a lord he may be, can drive me from my land but for the Church.’ These lines are taken from a narrative of the crusade against the Albigenses, in the _langue d’oc_—a work equally interesting as a contemporary source of history, and as a literary document. In the latter respect alone it concerns us here, and the reader is asked to consider the preceding historic remarks mainly as a necessary elucidation of the following extracts. A few dates as to the genesis and character of the poem itself may perhaps be welcome. The ‘Song of the Crusade against the Albigeois’ is evidently written by an eye-witness of many of the events described, and was, no doubt, at its first appearance, what we should call a most successful book. Its popularity is proved by the quotation already alluded to, as also by the fact that at an early date an abridgment of its contents in prose, for more popular use, was found necessary. In spite of this, only one manuscript[27] of the poem has reached our time. It was edited amongst the ‘Documents inédits sur l’histoire de France,’ by the well-known scholar, M. Fauriel, in 1837. The author of the poem is by no means reticent as to his identity or merits. ‘In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost,’ he opens his poem, after the manner of his time, ‘here begins the song which Master W(illiam) made; a clerk who was brought up at Tudela, in Navarra. He is wise and valorous, as the story says, and he was much cherished by clerks and laymen. Counts and viscounts loved him, and trusted his advice, owing to the destruction which he knew and foresaw by means of geomancy, which he had studied long. And he knew that the country would be burnt and laid waste, because of the foolish belief it had adopted.’