Béziers
A city on the river Orb in Languedoc. Crusaders stormed and burnt it on 22 July 1209; the papal legates reported nearly twenty thousand dead.
Béziers stands above the river Orb in Languedoc, between Narbonne and Montpellier. In 1209 it belonged to a viscount who was the nephew of the count of Toulouse, and Peter of les Vaux-de-Cernay calls it a most noble city wholly infected with heresy (Peter of les Vaux-de-Cernay, History of the Albigensians 16, cols 565–568). The crusading army appeared before it on the feast of Mary Magdalene. The legates wrote that it seemed strong enough to hold out against any army for a long time, and that it fell in two or three hours, was plundered and was burnt (Arnaud Amalric and Milo, Report to Innocent III (1209) cols 139–140). See the Albigensian Crusade.
What happened here
- 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.