Massacre at Beziers in Languedoc

1209

Crusader troops under Simon de Montfort and the legate Arnaud Amalric stormed the city and killed thousands of inhabitants, Catholic and Cathar alike. The legate's reported command, kill them all, God will know his own, became a byword for religious fury. The sack of Beziers was the opening atrocity of a twenty-year campaign that would shatter Occitan civilization beyond repair.