Author Description

The command “Kill them all! God will know His own” has resonated through the western world for eight centuries. The words are perhaps the most famous of the middle ages. In this book, polymath James McDonald looks in detail at the event at which these words were reported to have been spoken. Although the words were recorded by a contemporary monk, and attributed to an Abbot of the same monastic Order, some have questioned whether the command was ever given. Some have even claimed that it is "impossible" that such a command could have been given. Up until now, almost no original work on the question has been carried out by modern historians in the English-speaking world, and only a little by Francophone historians. This monograph offers a thoroughgoing reassessment of the question. It presents a mass of new evidence, exposes previously unrecognised significance in existing evidence, and frames new arguments that will undoubtedly shift received opinion among historians. An impressive range of facts are marshalled to underpin an astonishing array of careful arguments – incidentally illuminating on the way many unexpected aspects of medieval warfare, crusading practice, warrior-monks, religious dissent, and unexpected aspects of miracles and Christian morality, the famous Cathars of the Languedoc, and even the theology of the Early Church.