The St.
Bartholomew's Day massacre (Massacre de la Saint-Barthélemy in French)
in 1572 was a targeted group of assassinations.
and a wave of Catholic mob
violence, directed against the Huguenots (French Calvinist Protestants)
during the French Wars of Religion.
Traditionally
believed to have been instigated by Catherine de' Medici, the mother of King Charles IX, the massacre took
place five days after the wedding of the king's sister Margaret to the ProtestantHenry III of Navarre (the future Henry IV
of France). This marriage was an occasion for which many of the most wealthy
and prominent Huguenots had gathered in largely Catholic Paris.
The massacre
began in the night of 23–24 August 1572 (the eve of the feast of Bartholomew the Apostle), two days after
the attempted assassination of Admiral Gaspard de Coligny, the military and
political leader of the Huguenots. The king ordered the killing of a group of
Huguenot leaders, including Coligny, and the slaughter spread throughout Paris.
Lasting several
weeks, the massacre expanded outward to other urban centres and the
countryside. Modern estimates for the number of dead across France vary widely,
from 5,000 to 30,000.
The massacre
also marked a turning point in the French Wars of Religion. The Huguenot
political movement was crippled by the loss of many of its prominent
aristocratic leaders, as well as many re-conversions by the rank and file, and
those who remained were increasingly radicalized.
Though by no
means unique, it "was the worst of the century's religious
massacres."[2] Throughout
Europe, it "printed on Protestant minds the indelible conviction that
Catholicism was a bloody and treacherous religion"
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.