limited edition giclée print released on UV protected Rag Paper

60.96 x 86.36 cm [24 x 34 in]
edition 10 . printer proofs 1 . artist proofs 2

available for purchase, sale price $375.00
[Canadian funds]

[released: December 21 . 2009]
existing original: Yes

Béziers was a Languedoc stronghold of Catharism, which the Catholic Church condemned as heretical and which Catholic forces extirpated in the Albigensian Crusade. Béziers was the first city to be sacked, on July 22, 1209. Béziers' Catholics were given the opportunity to leave before the Crusaders besieged the city. However, they refused and fought with the Cathars. In a sortie outside the walls, their combined force was defeated, and pursued back into town. In the bloody massacre which followed, no one was spared, not even those who took refuge in the churches. The commander of the crusade was the Papal Legate Arnaud-Amaury (or Arnald Amalaricus, Abbot of Citeaux). When asked by a Crusader how to tell Catholics from Cathars once they had taken the city, the abbot supposedly replied, "Kill them all, God will know His own".

© copyright 2010 dan daulby