The Yellow Cross is a harrowing tale of a desperate people in a small corner of France who defied the kings of Europe and the Pope. The Cathars, whose religion was based on the Gospels but contradicted the tenets set forth by Rome, found themselves the focus of ruthless repression. In systematic waves of brutal persecution, thousands of Cathars were captured, summarily tried, and burned at the stake as heretics. Yet so ardent was their faith that during the years 1290 to 1329, the Cathars rose up one last time. René Weis tells the dramatic and moving story of these thirty years, offering a rich medieval tale of faith, adventure, sex, and courage. Having spent years exploring a rich trove of untouched information, including trial records and interrogation transcripts, Weis creates a remarkably detailed portrait of the last great gasp of the movement and the day-to-day life of the individual Cathars in their villages. This is an exceptionally vivid re-creation of a fascinating, and otherwise lost, world.

As a young boy, Christian Levro witnessed the brutal murder of his parents. The lingering shadow of that event, and its deeper implications, would haunt him for the rest of his life. The latest genetic link in a chain going back to a time of religious upheaval and persecution, Christian is a part of the Cathar movement: an ancient Christian sect believed to have been wiped out in 1326, following a Holy Crusade launched in 1209 by Pope Innocent III and King Phillipe Auguste of France. Unbeknownst to the papacy, the sect survived, dispersed in small communities around the world, and the Levro family have always held the key to their continuity and salvation. As such, they are guarded by a secret order of protectors, their importance hidden and defended from any who might seek them harm. And those dangers are starting to close in. While on the surface, things may have changed, zealots still working in secret within the Roman Catholic Church have sworn to carry on the holy crusade they know is not complete. They will stop at nothing to ensure that the heretics are wiped from the face of the earth once and for all. When tragedy strikes the Levro family once again, Christian’s young son, Sacha, is determined to unravel the mysteries surrounding his family’s history. He sets out on a quest fraught with intrigue, betrayal, lost relics, and secret texts, determined to finally get out from under the burden his family has carried for generations, and put an end to the persecution of his people. The Yellow Cross of Redemption is book one in a duology, which will conclude with The Sacred Quest.

In the 13th century, a group of heretics in southwest France, the Cathars, became a serious threat to the Catholic church. In several waves of repression, thousands of Cathars were killed. Yet so ardent was their faith that, early in the next century, the Cathars rose one last time. Using the breathtakingly detailed and uniquely extant documentation from this period, and drawing on his intimate knowledge of the last Cathars' tracks and hiding places, many of which survive to this day, René Weis tells the full story of this gripping historical episode.

Informed by both structuralism and poststructuralism, these essays by art critic and historian Yve Alain Bois seek to redefine the status of theory in modernist critical discourse. Warning against the uncritical adoption of theoretical fashions and equally against the a priori rejection of all theory, Bois argues that theory is best employed in response to the specific demands of a critical problem. The essays lucidly demonstrate the uses of various theoretical approaches in conjunction with close reading of both paintings and texts.

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