(mournful music)
- [John] Jerusalem.
Home of three great religions.
(sombre music)
- [Justine] In 1209 Pope Innocent the third decided
to use the machinery of crusading
against enemies at home.
Who was he worried about?
Heretics.
Pope Innocent had his sights set
on the Albigensians.
This group did have some very strange ideas
but they also had a strict moral programme
and called out corruption in the church.
Some called them the "good Christians".
The church authorities didn't think they were so good.
They tried convincing the Albigensians of the error
of their ways and when that failed,
Pope Innocent decided a military solution would be better.
Just wipe them out.
- The Albigensian Crusade is in many ways an anomaly
in Medieval Europe.
It is shocking to people at the time,
the war is exceptionally brutal, exceptionally bloody
and I don't mean that as a modern person
talking about the Middle Ages.
I mean again, people in the moment point out
how brutal and bloody the Albigensian crusade is.
- [Justine] Take what happened here, in Beziers.
The pope's army arrived
and demanded the town surrender its heretics.
A list of about 200 people.
The townspeople refused.
The crusaders stormed the city
but there was no way of telling the difference
between faithful Catholics and "heretical" Albigensians.
So they asked the Pope's representative what they should do
and he's supposed to have replied,
"Kill them all,
"God will know his own."
The soldiers slaughtered everyone in the town.
Reportedly about 20,000 people.
Men, women and children.
These "Knights of Christ" broke down the doors of churches
to kill those who'd sought sanctuary inside
and then burnt the town to the ground.
Strangely enough the bloodthirsty campaigns
of the Albigensian Crusade didn't achieve their goal
so the Church adopted a new approach.
One many people might consider even more sinister.
The Inquisitions.
