The St. Bartholomew's Day massacre: faith, politics, and violence

The night of August 23-24, 1572, saw one of the bloodiest massacres in the history of the Wars of Religion: the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre. This dramatic episode took place against the troubled backdrop of the Wars of Religion, which pitted Catholics against Protestants in the second half of the 16th century. The marriage between King Charles IX's sister, Marguerite de Valois, and the Protestant prince Henri de Navarre, was intended to reconcile the two sides, but this event quickly turned into a large-scale political and religious massacre.
Triggered in Paris by an assassination attempt on Admiral de Coligny, military leader and major figure of the Protestant party, the massacre quickly spiraled out of control and spread through the streets of Paris. It left several thousand dead, mainly Protestants who had come to attend the royal wedding, and quickly spread to several provinces of the kingdom.
The MIR is offering a special tour on August 24 on the theme of Saint Bartholomew's Day. The tour will explore the root causes of the massacre—religious tensions, political manipulation, collective fears—its implications for relations between Catholics and Protestants, and its symbolic significance in the history of the Reformation.