Burning of 180 Albigensians, AD 1210 1685

Jan Luyken made this engraving, “Burning of 180 Albigensians, AD 1210,” likely in the late 17th or early 18th century, to depict a massacre that happened centuries before. The image evokes a particularly fraught period in European religious history, one defined by sectarian violence. Luyken presents a scene of execution by fire. Who are the perpetrators, and who the victims? The Albigensians were Cathars, declared heretical by the Catholic Church in the 12th and 13th centuries. The politics of imagery are relevant here. Luyken himself was a Mennonite, part of the Anabaptist tradition. These groups often saw themselves as dissenting against the corruption of established churches. How might Luyken’s own religious commitments have shaped his rendering of this scene of persecution? Was he drawing parallels between the plight of the Cathars and that of other religious minorities in his own time? Historical sources, theological treatises, and biographical studies can all help us better understand both the event and the image.