Arnaud Amalric
Abbot of Cîteaux and papal legate who led the crusading army to Béziers in 1209 and reported its sack to Innocent III. A Cistercian writer a decade or more later reports as hearsay his answer, to kill them, since the Lord knows who are his.
William of Tudela says that it was the abbot of Cîteaux who brought the great host before Béziers on the feast of the Magdalene in 1209 (William of Tudela, Song of the Albigensian Crusade laisse 18 (Meyer, vol. 2, p. 24)). The report on what followed went to the pope in the name of “brother Arnaud, called abbot of Cîteaux”, and his fellow legate Milo. It says that the city was stormed by camp servants without orders, that nearly twenty thousand people were put to the sword without regard to rank, sex or age, and that divine vengeance had raged wonderfully against the place (Arnaud Amalric and Milo, Report to Innocent III (1209) cols 137–141).
Caesarius of Heisterbach, a monk of the same order writing between about 1219 and 1223, names “Arnold, abbot of Cîteaux, afterwards archbishop of Narbonne” as the preacher and head of the crusade. In his telling the soldiers ask the abbot how to tell the good from the bad, and the abbot, fearing that heretics would feign to be Catholics, “is said to have said” (fertur dixisse): Kill them, for the Lord knows who are his (Caedite eos. Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius) (Caesarius of Heisterbach, Dialogue on Miracles 5.21 (Strange, vol. 1, pp. 301–302)). The legates’ own letter has no such exchange. See the Albigensian Crusade.
In the timeline
- 1209 to 1229, firm dateThe Albigensian Crusade
After a papal legate is murdered, Innocent III calls for arms against the count of Toulouse and the heretics of his lands. Crusaders sack Béziers in 1209, and twenty years of war end with the count’s heir submitting to the church and the French crown.