Was the Albigensian Crusade genocide?

  • Thread starter Thread starter thephilosopher6
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
T

thephilosopher6

Guest
At the siege of Béziers (July 21, 1209 A.D.), under the command of papal legate Arnaud Amalric, Cathars in the city were demanded to surrender while Catholics in the city were asked to come out peacefully. Neither group followed through, and so Arnaud Amalric uttered the famous words, “Kill them all! God will know his own.” Reports state the number killed were 20,000, though this generally seen as an exaggeration since the town had less than 15,000 people living there at the time. Still, the massacre was large, and little distinction was made between Catholic and Cathar, man or woman, adult or child.

Similar massacres took places against the Cathars, and the general population of southern France, throughout the rest of the crusade.

Was this genocide?
 
Last edited:
A definition from the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide:
Any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life, calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; [and] forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
Click to expand...
Admittedly, I don’t know enough about the event in question. But as you know far more, would you say and or all of the above took place?
 
I’m not that knowledgeable about it. I don’t feel like I can make proper judgment here. I was hoping to have a civil debate.
 
Ah! My mistake, sorry. The central question to be asked is whether the victims constituted a specific group (religion, ethnicity, etc.). Did they? Was the purpose of this action to eradicate them?
 
Well, the crusade was targeted against a specific religious group, that is, the Cathars.
 
IMO, yes it was.

But those who murdered hardly needed a religious justification. They wanted to kill -they wanted to pacify their bloodlust. Religious difference of opinion was frequently used as the excuse given for people to mow down others they didn’t like. Out of the abundance of the heart…

What happened to the Cathars was a tragedy.
 
Last edited:
I’m not sure that we can judge medieval actions by our modern morality. One thing to consider is that there was no separation of church and state back then, so to attack the church was to attack the kingdom. The cathars were not innocent victims btw, they waged war against the faithful, and killed a papal representative in 1208.
 
You’re asking if killing 20,000 civilians is genocide? You need a job at the UN.
 
It was justice well served. The cathars used to kill their children because they believed all the created world to be evil and the spiritual world the only good.

Evil. Evil. People.
 
Last edited:
JanSobieskiIII said:
It was justice well served. The cathars used to kill their children because they believed all the created world to be evil and the spiritual world the only good.

Evil. Evil. People.
Click to expand...
Can you provide some reliable source for your statement that the Cathars killed their own children? I’ve never heard this before and I’ve read several books on the Cathars.
 
The Cathars, Albigensians, in early protestantism and its prolific writings were used extensively and with much folk-lore and invention, fueled for the primary reason, to incite hatred against the Catholic Church. I have spoken with protestants even now who believe Cathars were evangelical Christians.

How much is true and how much is made up is unfortunately completely lost by those very hands who sought to milk it.
 
Last edited:
We kill our children today by abortion.

There are other ways to kill children. Matrimonial intercourse being made unlawful would do that.
 
It was in a book I read. I can’t remember which one

I’ve googled repeatedly and I can’t find anything backing up my claim. Perhaps I’m thinking of a different group.
 
Last edited:
Kinda like the Amalekites in 1 Samuel?

Geez, if only God would send someone to straighten all this out…
 
It was indeed a different world order back then. The bigger tragedy is that there are minorities which get massacred in this day and age, when we supposedly have universal human rights.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top