A native of Pennsylvania, G.E.M. Lippiatt graduated from the Virginia Military Institute with a BA in History and English before attending Hertford College, Oxford on a Rhodes Scholarship. There he read for a MSt in Medieval History and a DPhil in History. He is a lecturer in medieval history at the University of Exeter and lives in Devon with his wife and daughters.
Lippiatt ... treats Simon of Montfort analytically, focusing on this magnate and crusader's construction and maintenance of baronial governance and administration in his hereditary lands, and his attempts to carve out a territory in Languedoc during the Albigensian Crusade. The author thoroughly goes through the various territories Simon of Montfort inherited, claimed, or acquired, and how the French baron attempted to govern them. Lippiatt has incorporated good archival work and imagination to argue that Simon's regime in southern France was neither haphazard nor completely ad hoc ... Highly recommended. * L.W. Marvin, CHOICE *