St Bartholomew's Day Massacre
- Date
- 24 August 1572
- Category
- Religion & ideology
- Region
- Kingdom of France
- Era
- Early Modern
- Significance
Beginning at dawn on 24 August 1572 in Paris, Catholic mobs and royal forces slaughtered French Protestants (Huguenots) who had gathered for the wedding of the Protestant Henry of Navarre to Margaret of Valois.
The killing followed a failed attempt to assassinate the Huguenot leader Admiral Gaspard de Coligny and a decision, associated with the queen mother Catherine de' Medici and King Charles IX, to eliminate the Protestant leadership. Coligny was murdered and the violence spread from the capital into the provinces over the following weeks, leaving an estimated 5,000 to 25,000 dead. The massacre was the most infamous episode of the French Wars of Religion (1562-1598), a series of civil wars between Catholics and Huguenots that fractured the kingdom. Its consequences were profound: it traumatised and radicalised the surviving Protestant minority, hardened confessional divisions, and propelled the conflict into a more militant phase. The atrocity reverberated across Europe, celebrated in Catholic capitals and condemned in Protestant ones, and became a defining symbol of the era's religious violence and of the dangers of weak central authority unable to enforce confessional peace.
One piece of history in your inbox, weekly
New empires, events and features as they land — one good email a week. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Empires active in 24 August 1572
- Ottoman Empire1299 CE – 1922 CE
- Songhai Empire1464 CE – 1591 CE
- Solomonic dynasty1270 CE – 1974 CE
- Ming Dynasty1368 CE – 1644 CE
- Mughal Empire1526 CE – 1857 CE
- Portuguese Empire1415 CE – 1999 CE
Related religion & ideology events
- Edict of Nantes ends the French Wars of Religion13 April 1598
- Revocation of the Edict of Nantes18 October 1685
- Martin Luther's Ninety-five Theses and the start of the Reformation31 October 1517
- Compilation of the Adi Granth, Sikh Scripture1604 CE
- The Catholic Counter-Reformation: the Jesuits and the Council of Trent27 September 1540
- Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion and the Reformed tradition1536
Further reading
The wider story
A Little History of Religion
Accessible sweep of humanity's faiths and belief systems from prehistory to the present.
Get it on Amazon →As an Amazon Associate, Human Saga earns from qualifying purchases.