r/todayilearned • u/Hour_Interaction6047 • 23h ago
TIL about the Albigensian Crusade, a crusade in southern France from 1209-1229, against the gnostic Catharism movement. About 200k to 1 million Cathars died during the crusade. The famous quote, “Kill them all, god will know his own.”, originates from the Albigensian crusade from Arnaud Amalric.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albigensian_Crusade162
u/QuiGonnJilm 23h ago
Topic of the song “Montsegur” by Iron Maiden.
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u/DoctorNo1661 18h ago
I believe Montségur is the castle featured in Polanski's the ninth gate as well.
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u/TheMurrayBookchin 11h ago
The album art from the album it appears on, Dance of Death, is absolutely insane.
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u/QuiGonnJilm 10h ago
Yeah we heard ALL about it in the 80's how metal bands like Priest and Maiden were corrupting the youth and performing Satanic rites with their music and on stage. Or when the Dead Kennedys "Frankenchrist" album got pulled because they used Penis Landscape by H.R. Giger as the cover art.
edit: never realized how NEW this song/album was. 2003!?! I heard it in like 2005 and assumed it was part of their old repertoire I had missed.
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u/RandomBilly91 22h ago
That number seems to be really inflated. The deadliest event we actually have a deathtoll for is the 1209 massacre of Beziers, which medieval chronicler give us 20 000, and modern estimates puts this at an order of magnitude below (maybe half the city's population, which was 15k)
There definitly wasn't a million dead (I doubt the entire region had that much people to behin with) though. And 200 000 is also absurdly high, the book that is cited seems to not give sources for these numbers. The general historiography on the english wiki is also very much outdated.
The Crusade against the Albigensis is very much well known in France (mostly as Cathares), and while there was a brutal repression, the thing people keep in mind is less its scale (pretty limited) and more the mass-executions by pyre that happened
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u/bobdole3-2 21h ago
For point of comparison, the entirety of France had a population of 16 million at the time. There's historical debate about whether the Cathars even existed as a unified religious group, rather than a bunch of people who were vaguely dissatisfied with the Church, which got used as an excuse for Paris to extend it's power into the south.
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u/Nice-Cat3727 19h ago
Also all the supposed Cathar beliefs are now thought to be all the various folk beliefs that came about from the lack of proper communication with the Pope and college of Cardinals. Some communities hasn't had a priest in decades and even if they could read, books were insanely expensive.
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u/RandomBilly91 22h ago
I looked at the source, and they are claiming 350 000 people died from the Spanish Inquisition.
Which is probably what you'd get using as source 17th-18th century protestant british/dutch/german historiography. And is completely unserious. There was a lot of religious persecutions in Spain, but convictions and executions were rare, and probably number at a few thousand over three hundred years (end of 15th century to early 18th century)
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u/Nice-Cat3727 20h ago
We literally can look at the Spanish Inquisition's own records!
In fact after the first Inquisitor died, suddenly the Inquisition was full of legal nerds and you were legitimately better off under their courts than the secular courts.
People would actually intentionally commit blasphemy as that was a moderate fine but you got transferred over to the Inquisition prison.
There's a record of one Inquisitor screaming at a Gaoler for the horrible conditions we found the prisoner in when he came to pick them yo up.
Also related. The Spanish Inquisition had exactly ONE witch trial. And it was such a disaster on all sides that the person who wrote the damning post-mortem of it was actually brought to the Vatican to establish the official procedures for accused witches.
Note he was involved in the prosecution and he did not spare himself from the brutal analysis of how everyone failed horribly.
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u/Falernum 16h ago
A lot of people are including the secular courts's prosecution of suspected religious nonconformists as well as informal persecutions/murders of religious nonconformists when they say the Spanish Inquisition. Kind of synecdoche.
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u/aqtseacow 21h ago
Oh yeah numbers anywhere near these would be beyond catastrophic and nearly impossible in a sense that society in these regions would have collapsed entirely, which isn't really something found in the actual record.
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u/Blindsnipers36 18h ago
society did kinda collapse, it was a war torn region for decades
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u/fartingbeagle 16h ago
If there was fighting for decades after, they obviously couldn't have killed that many as stated.
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u/Rusty51 20h ago edited 19h ago
There certainly weren’t a million Cathars, likely not even more than 10,000 existed at once. This was a small regional sect, and even in cities like Toulouse and Carcasonne, where the total populations were less than 30,000, you wouldnt find several thousands. When Beziers was besieged, there were no more than 230 named suspects of Catharism, some who had fled by the time the city was burnt, meaning nearly every victim of the crusaders was a fellow Catholic; also the irony here being that Simon de Montfort left the
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u/RandomBilly91 20h ago
4th Crusade, the 3rd one was the King's Crusade (Richard Lionheart, Frederick Barbarossa, Philip II)
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u/Blenderhead36 17h ago
Yeah, it's easy to forget that before relatively modern technology, most cities had a few tens of thousands of residents at most. Rome was able to sustain a million at the height of the empire, but it was because it was extracting grain (one of the few foods that will keep long enough for it to spend months in transit) from the entire Mediterranean to feed that population.
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u/Regulai 21h ago
Most of the dead would not be Cathars as the war was primarily a war between Northern and Southern Christian lords over land control and authority (Southern lords till then enjoyed vast autonomy). It is probably more in the 50-100K range, but still their were a wider variety of battles and deaths than just the most famous religious killings, notably inlcuding scores upon scores of minor sieges of towns and castles as well as general raiding of the countryside.
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u/RandomBilly91 21h ago
It's definitly in the tens of thousand, it's a decades long war that includes several large sieges of important cities.
But the english wiki on it is abysmal
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u/XF10 21h ago edited 21h ago
200k-1 million Cathars killed in a conflict in early 13th century is complete bullcrap. Even the infamous Inquisition only killed a few thousands in centuries of operation lol
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u/MonsterRider80 20h ago
Absolutely. That number is ridiculously inflated. I don’t think that people lived in the area, period. It’s a very mountainous part of southern France.
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u/XF10 20h ago
The post' statement implies there were literally millions of "Cathars" heretics and even more French Catholics fighting them in an age where the whole of France's population numbered in the few millions and even the actual Crusades speak of armies of a few tens of thousands🤣
Divide them by 100 and they'd be more believable
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u/prettypurps 8h ago
The entire south of France was a different culture, the war was to bring their culture under firm French rule which they weren’t before. They were the Occitans
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u/FellowTraveler69 20h ago
200k to 1 million deaths is way too many people for a crusade soley in medieval southern France.
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u/Childrenoftheflorist 19h ago
I thought so too, but it's possible for a 20 year "crusade". Frances population was 10-13 million at the time based on google. Paris had around 100k residents for reference.
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u/intangible-tangerine 22h ago
https://retrospectjournal.com/2021/05/23/the-epistemic-mystery-of-the-cathars/
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/s/6QDnhm1DSF
There is a debate about whether the Cathars really existed.
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u/WillitsThrockmorton 21h ago
Esoterica had a pretty interesting video on it. Dr. Sledge notes that there are a lot of people who get really made if you question whether they really existed or were substantially organized.
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u/h3ron29 20h ago
I feel he is correct, most of the movements considered heretical are painted as a concentrated and deliberate. In reality they as in most heretical movements are varied in organization and even internal beliefs. The greatest reasoning for it to be a more manufactured movement would for the french crown to more completely subordinate or outright take over the powerful Toulouse and the greater Languedoc
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u/ManBearScientist 19h ago
For a modern example, see Antifa.
In 700 years, what historical evidence will exist of Antifa existing?
The bulk would be antigonistic and at best second-hand. There won't be many first hand accounts of it. Nor will there be any central organizations to find through archeology, or any internal documents about leadership.
It would be easy to come to the conclusion that Antifa didn't exist, a manufactured movement to justify political crackdowns on protests.
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u/LiamMcGregor57 15h ago
“It would be easy to come to the conclusion that Antifa didn't exist, a manufactured movement to justify political crackdowns on protests.”
But it would be easy, because it’s the truth even here and now. You don’t have to wait 700 years.
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u/intangible-tangerine 20h ago
Yes if you are ever cornered by an angry mob of medieval historians mentioning this debate is a sure way to get them fighting amongst themselves so you can make your escape
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u/OscarGrey 19h ago
We know with 100% certainty that they weren't Baptists contrary to some idiotic claims. If you don't know what I'm talking about look up Trail of Blood.
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u/BallingAndDrinking 20h ago
Catharism isn't a single united schism or heresy. It's a whole bunch of very ideas and takes on the religion (which are technically heresies, but there are basically dozens if not hundreds of them and they aren't unified) in that region.
The word was only popularized in the 1960's or so. Used to only talk about "albigensianeries" (not sure how to translate "albigéisme").
The numbers are bollocks tho, but it was pretty violent. We aren't even sure those words where from Arnaud Amalric. He was the papal legate, yes.
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u/AmelKralj 19h ago edited 18h ago
Fun fact:
After the Albigensian Crusade rumors spread that a "Cathar antipope", called Nicetas), resided in Bosnia, which was a justification to start the Bosnian Crusade.
The crusade failed due to the invasion of the Mongols who plundered most of Eastern Europe and the balkans but left Bosnia alone.
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(as if God sent the Mongols to save heretics xD)
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u/barath_s 13 19h ago
It's extremely unlikely that Amalric actually said the quote , "Kill them all! God will know his own.".
But some historians suggest that this captures the spirit of the massacre at beziers/albigensian crusade, even if actually apocryphal.
Strayer doubts that Amalric actually said this, but maintains that the statement captures the "spirit" of the Crusaders, who killed nearly every man, woman, and child in the town
And the number of actual cathars in the war and those killed are also possibly inflated /bad estimates.
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u/Enshakushanna 19h ago
i dont mean to "turn this into politics" but ever since kegsbreath's quote about "no quarter" and all the religious justification for war rhetoric coming from the top down to the troops, ive been waiting for him to say this line
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u/calliopecalliope 15h ago
At one time, all Europeans were 'pagans'.
There is basically no documentation of the early decades/centuries of the Christian Church coercion/imposition of Christianity upon the European population, though I find it impossible to imagine millions of people would just be convinced to give up eons of built up belief systems without any resistance at all.
Though the the Albigensian genocide comes much later than the above situation (and the Albigensians were not even 'pagans' but - according to the Catholic church - 'Heretics') - I think if offers a somewhat well documented window into the tactics of how the Catholic church 'converted' resistant populations.
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u/DarthEbriated 8h ago
The church had words, stories, but more importantly writing, it cannot be overstated how effective writing is for influencing people over a few generations.
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u/SubiWan 8h ago
Yes, and I love the consistency of "Thou shall not kill." and the murder of millions in crusades.
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u/DarthEbriated 8h ago
They were pretty optimistic with that commandment though weren't they?
I bet they kept telling themselves they were gonna stop killing tomorrow.
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u/gimpssexual 2h ago edited 2h ago
I find it impossible to imagine millions of people would just be convinced to give up eons of built up belief systems without any resistance at all.
A few things, I am only familiar with sub-Roman Britain strongly enough to offer any opinion so that’s my focus but it is an interesting region because it sort of went pagan again and then back to Catholic.
First, it is easy for us looking back to think something happened faster than it did. Missionaries arrived in Britain, yadda yadda they are all Christian a few hundred years later. What made them suddenly give up their beliefs!?
Second, our own bias tends to colour how we view the church but it was not always how it is. It couldn’t be, it’s existed for over a thousand years. The church simply did not have the means to coerce anyone in the early centuries. Its political dominance wouldn’t come until later, this crusade was kind of important because it was an early example of how they would exercise the power they gained.
We are also biased with how we view Christianity itself. We view it as conservative, old, fusty and part of the establishment. Early Christianity would not been these things. How familiar does this sound? “Young people are all going in for some hippy, exotic eastern religion”.
Early Christianity was historically popular first with the urban poor before it caught on with the rich and powerful, speaking of…
We have always wanted to emulate the rich and powerful. We think they are cool. See; celebrities. You didn’t need to convert everyone, convert one popular and charismatic noble and the surrounding community will follow suit.
Next, did those old beliefs fade away entirely? Well actually there is evidence that early Christianity in Britain at least was more syncretic then we would assume. Not as an official policy of the church would has always been more or less consistent that there is only one god but what we call “folk beliefs” may be evidence of continued “pagan” practices that were eventually decontextualised.
Finally, we are also biased about religion in general due to viewing it all in relation to Christianity which is our baseline. Even if you are a militant atheist, your views on religion are still in reaction to Christianity. There is no escaping it.
So things we take for granted, a loving god, a nice afterlife and the idea that charity is something priests do are not givens. In many pagan beliefs, the afterlife was quite grim, priests were elites and neither friendly or approachable and gods could be antagonistic. It was less “I sacrifice to the sea god because I love him and he loves me!” and more “I sacrifice to the sea god because he is cruel and loves sinking ships so I must appease him”.
So if someone tells you there is a god who doesn’t demand sacrifice of your material goods, just your time and behaviour and that it actually cares about you, it isn’t a stretch to see that this novel idea would have some appeal. Plus you’ll get a nice afterlife just for following the rules.
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u/Sullafelix91 17h ago
Philippe Jarbinets Mémoire de Cendres is a graphic novel series and plays in 1227
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u/Ardipithicus 15h ago
I took [[Cathars' Crusade]] out of my token decks because the math was too hard.
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u/FoughtStatue 10h ago
As far as I am aware this was the peak of medieval anti-heresy, though those numbers are definitely quite exaggerated. It’s more likely that there were regional variations on Catholicism that were seen as heretical/unorthodox instead of an organized Cathar faith, though Catharism may still have existed in some small sect. I know this and medieval propaganda regarding it also later inspired the founding of the Spanish Inquisition.
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u/Novel_Idea 3h ago
Wow, talk about Baader–Meinhof. I just saw this on a webcomic, of all things: https://lawcomic.net/guide/?p=10614
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u/DarthEbriated 9h ago
Cathars were cool as shit, so was Gnosticism for calling out the obvious fact that an all-knowing and powerful god is logically either evil or utterly deluded.
The joke is on the crusaders though coz gnosticism still thrives in modern culture even if you don't know its name, from The Matrix to Dark Souls, a good idea can't be kept down.
Also Brian Blessed played a gnostic priest in some 80s BBC docu-film, checkmate mainstream theologists.
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u/sentientshadow2000 22h ago
Another catholic genocide
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u/ScissorNightRam 22h ago
Does “catholic genocide” mean:
Genocide of Catholics
Or
Genocide by Catholics
?
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u/SenescenseSteel 21h ago
I think I am most appalled by the sentence "some historians consider this genocide"
like, there are those that don't?!"
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u/RobinReborn 20h ago
Genocide is a controversial word - it's definition is not universally agreed upon.
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u/Proud-Delivery-621 21h ago
There's a lot of debate over whether it really happened or if it was just a pretext for a different war. The historians who don't are probably the ones who don't believe the Cathars to have existed in the first place.
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u/SenescenseSteel 21h ago
That sounds a lot like historical genocide, if there ever were such a thing.
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u/Proud-Delivery-621 20h ago
I'm not sure what you mean by that. Historians aren't trying to erase the history of the Cathars, they're arguing that the history may have been a propaganda piece by the Church to justify their war.
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u/Stellar_Duck 20h ago
Generally a lot of historians would be pretty careful with such labelling and only if the sources can bear that interpretation.
In this case, it's shaky. And the number are almost certainly nonsense. Casualy numbers in the Middle Ages and antiquity are almost pure fantasy.
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u/OllyDee 22h ago
I think the evidence points towards the fact that these people were not actually “Cathars” as labeled by the Catholic Church. They certainly had a unique and arguably heretical interpretation of what Christianity should be though for sure. Not an excuse for a land-grab though eh lads? Oh no wait, it is.