Convert or Die

In the Middle Ages, the Roman Catholic Church organised many Crusades. Most were to the Holy Land, where the Crusaders' swords were pitted against the Saracens' scimitars. However, one crusade much closer to home is not so well-known, in which Christians fought against fellow Christians. This was the Albigensian Crusade, also known as the Cathar Crusade, initiated by Pope Innocent III between 1209 and 1229 to eradicate the Cathars in the Languedoc region of southern France. Beziers was one of the first cities in the Languedoc to suffer at the hands of the Crusaders, where as many as twenty thousand were slaughtered and the city destroyed. Of the twenty thousand, only around two hundred and twenty were Cathars – the rest were Catholic, many of whom were slaughtered when taking refuge in the Churches of Saint Mary Magdalene and Saint Jude, including the Catholic priests.