In 1208 Pope Innocent III proclaimed a crusade of “extermination” and “expurgation” against the heretics supposedly infesting the lands of the count of Toulouse. What is now known as the “Albigensian Crusade” lasted twenty-one years and was the first holy war in which Christians were guaranteed salvation by killing other Christians. The massacres during the crusade, especially at Béziers in 1209, were “genocidal moments.” The victims, though, were neither an ethnic, national, or racial group. The victims were arguably a regional or possibly a cultural group, but such groups are not covered by the modern legal definition of genocide. Nevertheless, they were deliberately targeted for destruction. Despite accusations of heresy, the victims were not initially a self-consciously different religious group either. Crucially, they were not “Cathars,” which is what most medieval historians and genocide scholars assume the victims to have been. “Catharism” as a medieval heresy never existed; it was an invention of nineteenth-century scholars trying to understand the Albigensian crusade more “scientifically” and less confessionally. Finally, were the individual testimonies collected by the first inquisitions into heretical depravity, established in Toulouse in the aftermath of the Albigensian crusade, analogous to the memories of individuals who witnessed or survived genocides collected by modern tribunals?

Gruesome instances of mass killing have punctuated the 6000 year-long sequence of the prehistoric South American Andes, an area that encompasses modern-day Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, and northern Argentina and Chile. Accurately gauging the intensity and intent of violence—in particular mass extermination—among people who left no form of written language, requires a forensic skeletal approach that informs on both the cause and manner of death, as well as the nature of corpse disposal or burial, which itself reveals how bodies were treated after death.

Time and again, aggressors in the Andes marshalled common tactics, including the sacking of towns and sanctuaries, instituting systems of mass displacement, controlling reproduction among women, moving children from subservient groups, and orchestrating the maiming and murder of both formidable rivals and civilian noncombatants alike. These violent episodes of eradication may best be understood as outbreaks of local communal strife, limited in both place and time. These genocidal moments capture the collective murder of targeted sub-population groups. The physical and material record helps us identify catastrophic death assemblages, reconstruct the profiles of victim and perpetrators, discern the methods of murder, and even deduce underlying motivations for attack.

A question not asked to this point in the study of genocide by all the scholars associated with this work in the various disciplines is whether or not there something inherent in the very social construction we call “religion” that lends itself, adapts itself, all-too-easily to those communities— both nation-states and non-nation-state actors—that perpetrate genocide, either in actuality or in potential? Thus, this contribution begins with something of a theoretical look-see vis-à-vis that nexus between religion and genocide by suggesting applicable definitions for both and further outlining the constituent factors of each. (NB: There are, in truth, uncomfortable similarities between religious groups and genocidal perpetrator groups which, to my understanding, have never been addressed or explored.) To further bolster my overall argument—that religion, however defined and understood, is a “participating factor” (my preferred term) in all genocides, both historically and contemporarily—a series of case studies, using Raphael Lemkin’s tri-partite division from his incomplete History of Genocide—Antiquity, Middle Ages, Modern Times—are examined to determine whether my thesis holds.

Genocide has a way of imposing silence. Part of its purpose is to erase history, and human voices. This series of three volumes aims to contribute to breaking the silence that so often follows genocidal outbreaks. These volumes attempt to document and understand this global phenomenon. The term “genocide,” as a way of describing the “practice of extermination of nations and ethnic groups,” was coined in 1943, when Raphael Lemkin (1900-1959) penned the preface to his 1944 book Axis Rule in Occupied Europe. Five years later the United Nations General Assembly unanimously adopted the Genocide Convention. But Lemkin considered genocide to have much older roots. He had set about writing – but did not complete before his death – a three-volume history of genocide from ancient times, in which he argued that the phenomenon had “followed humanity throughout history.”

The term genocide has often been applied to the Mongol conquests in the thirteenth century, as well as many other pre-modern groups. Legally, the 1948 UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide can only be applied anachronistically to the Mongols, but the Mongols have been accused of genocide of the Tatars (1202) as well as the Tangut (1227). Yet, these accusations often misunderstand the events themselves, not to mention the motives of not only the Mongols, but also the purpose of those actions. This is not to say that the Mongols did not employ massacres and other actions of mass destruction. Indeed, massacres were used widely, but often more judiciously that one might expect. Indeed, rape, pillage and plunder was standard not only for the Mongols but virtually all military organizations of the era.

While the legal application of the UN Convention definition may be impractical, nonetheless, investigating its attribution to the Mongols can be a useful exercise as it can help us understand not only the era and methods of violence employed, but also how the Mongols understood and rationalized their actions. Of greater significance is the employment of Leo Kuper’s concept of “genocidal massacres”. This concept cannot be considered anachronistic in any sense. Furthermore, it lends itself to a broader understanding of whether these “genocidal massacres” lead to a broader pattern of actions that might properly fall under the umbrella of genocide as defined by the UN Convention on the basic principle described by Douglas Adams, “If it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, we have at least to consider the possibility that we have a small aquatic bird of the family anatidae on our hands”.

Additionally, this study cannot be confined strictly to episodes of violence. In order to properly understand genocide in the context of the Mongol Empire, or any entity, one must understand other policies (both direct and indirect) that may be connected to the genocidal act. This is all the more important as the Mongol Empire emerged from the steppes which in the 12th century had numerous tribal entities into a single polity known as the Yeke Monggol Ulus. The use of the term ulus is particularly important. While it eventually acquired the meaning of “patrimony” and then later “nation or country” as it does today (Mongolia’s name in Mongolian is Mongol Uls), in the thirteenth century it was only used by the Mongols to refer to the various Mongol lineages. Other non-Mongol groups were considered irgen or people. There was a clear identification of the other. Thus, we must also consider whether the establishment of the Yeke Monggol Ulus was simply the melding of diverse groups, whether through voluntary or coercive actions, or perhaps something a bit different and did this Mongols apply massacres, deportations, and others aspects related to genocide and extermination as instruments of state creation in the creation of the Yeke Monggol Ulus.

In 146 BCE, Rome destroyed the cities of Carthage and Corinth, and in 133 BCE the Spanish stronghold of Numantia. The destruction of a city in the Greco-Roman world was a deeply symbolic act, and these particular acts of ‘urbicide’ – as we now call the intentional destruction of a city – were viewed by Greco-Roman authors as pivotal moments in Roman the expansion of Rome’s power. All three acts can be understood through the prism of retributive ‘conspicuous destruction’, designed to deter others from revolting against Rome’s power. In each case, Rome effaced individual responsibility for any perceived acts of disloyalty, and collectively punished the community through its effective elimination: after many perished in the siege and or sack of the city, the surviving population was enslaved, and the city itself destroyed – not to be re-inhabited by the survivors. When viewed through the prism of the definition of ‘genocide’ in the ‘Genocide Convention’, these actions of Rome could be viewed as intentional acts to destroy these civic communities ‘as such’, and thus warrant consideration as genocide. Of the three, Carthage stands out in the predetermination on the part of some at Rome – fueled by existential anxieties - to destroy the city, before an actual pretext existed.

The European conquest of the seven islands of the Canarian archipelago lasted almost a century (1402-1496). It was carried mostly by private adventurers backed by the legal rights of the Castilian crown and supplied by private financiers, who expected a quick return. It brought the destruction of the native population of all its islands, the erasure of their names, language, custom, economy, land ownership, ecological environment, beliefs, culture, social structure, and political organization. The means by which it was achieved were enslavement, deportation, disease, and the strategic use of terror. Acculturation, miscegenation, and the building of a colonial society based on plantation agriculture and long-distance trade did the rest to erase any trace of the indigenous culture. Genocide, in the case of the Canary Islands, can be understood both as a process of attrition, following its use by Fein and Rosenberg, and as an outcome, the aggregate result of thousands of specific instances of violence. It also was a prelude, a necessary learning ground and a blueprint of the European conquest and settler colonialism in the Antilles begun in the 1490s. The American conquest proved a much faster application of the same template for genocide, over a vast territory.

The Vietnamese Le dynasty launched a massive invasion of its neighbor, Champa, in 1471. The invasion, which was the culmination of centuries of back and forth conflict, produced widespread Cham deaths, and the permanent weakening of the southern kingdom. The Vietnamese actions, resulting in at least 40,000 recorded deaths, may well have been genocidal, though the limited historical record is unclear. It does, though, reveal that the Vietnamese used beheading against many of the victims, an action that appears punitive rather than incidental to warfare, and uniquely applied to the Cham. Furthermore, the Vietnamese carried out a project to rename geographical features in the Cham territories, suggesting a degree of cultural erasure while also substantially and permanently reducing the size of the Cham realm. Thus, although the evidence for genocide is ambiguous, it is clear that the Vietnamese actions in the late fifteenth century sought permanently to reduce the influence and threat posed by Champa via an overwhelming show of force.

This chapter explores key episodes of extreme violence in the context of wars between Greek-speaking groups in the Hellenistic period. Case studies explore the phenomenon of destruction of Hellenistic cities and interrogate whether such destruction in warfare should be counted as genocide. The chapter identifies and compares conditions for extreme violence in the Hellenistic period, which was marked by continual warfare. It argues that competing discourses about justice, together with different emotional regimes related to justice, including anger, pity, and shame, serve both to moderate and intensify violence throughout this period. Where violence is taken to be just, views of justice as legitimate punishment and vengeance can ground acts of extreme violence, while view of justice as reasonable, equitable and gentle may moderate violence but could also be activated to justify extreme violence, if it is taken to be responding to extraordinary provocations or ethical and religious violations. These traditions of justice and emotional norms in the context of warfare in turn sit within a range of other cultural and political commitments which may both moderate and provoke extreme violence, including the development and maintenance of civic identity, legal and religious norms, and considerations of economic and political power.

Did genocide exist in prehistory before the formation of states? With Europe as focus, this article seeks an answer to this seminal question by coupling three lines of archaeological evidence: warfare, abnormal graves and genetics. When warfare is waged against other groups, there is a risk of genocidal events of unconstrained violence. Warfare became more frequent when Neolithic farmers, and later pastoral herders, migrated into the land in several expansions that eventually absorbed or replaced original residents. In the Bronze Age, along with professional military units and higher population densities, abnormal graves increased significantly in frequency. Indeed, warfare is often in evidence in abnormal graves, which call to mind recent examples of genocidal massacres and mass graves. At times, however, there is no apparent reason for the deviant interment. The victims in these graves evidently shared some form of identity. Young women and adolescents are often in minority, probably because they were taken captives and incorporated in the captors’ society as wives and labourers. The conclusion is that genocidal moments took place. Genetic and archaeological evidence corroborates that exposed groups’ possibility to continue reproducing themselves economically, culturally and biologically became restricted. Epidemics is an unknown variable.

William I’s ‘Harrying of the North’ was a military expedition against local rebels and a Danish invasion force in the winter of 1069–70. It has been regarded since the 1870s as a uniquely savage treatment of the English inhabitants of northern England, wantonly destructive of life and the means of sustenance, and tantamount to genocide. Such views derive from the two fullest medieval accounts, by the early twelfth-century historians Symeon of Durham and Orderic Vitalis. However, neither was an eye-witness, both were at work two generations later, and both had their own agenda in describing the destruction of the North and William I’s cruelty. The Harrying should instead be seen as a routine military operation which took place, unusually, in the depths of winter, and so had unusually severe consequences. More strictly contemporary accounts from Evesham and Beverley reveal a regional but probably localized famine and a refugee crisis. Further, the record in Domesday Book (1086) of many Yorkshire villages as ‘waste’ should be read as referring not to physical destruction but to the absence of surplus values accruing to landlords, and not caused by the Harrying alone. The Harrying of the North was no genocide.

This chapter explores the pervasiveness of narratives of genocide and mass violence in Israelite and early Jewish sources and relate this genocidal impulse to the interethnic violence that occurred in the ancient Levant in different periods. It argues that various historical factors contributed to the prevalence of extreme violence in these sources: the brutality of imperialistic aggression carried out against the Israelites by several ancient Near Eastern empires; the demographic shifts that contributed to material scarcities in the Iron Age II and the Hellenistic-Roman era; and the dichotomized processes of ethnic boundary-marking that characterize so many Israelite and early Jewish texts. The merging of these factors generated an abundance of literature depicting genocide and other forms of mass violence.

The role of climate (including abrupt changes and extreme weather) in modern-era violence and conflict has received considerable attention in the past two decades from scholars in multiple fields, yet the mechanisms underlying (and even the reality of) such a role remains contested. Concern over projected climatic changes as a trigger for intensified violence, including mass killing and genocide, nonetheless continues to propel research. Data limitations are frequently cited as a challenge, yet comparatively few studies have turned to the millennia of human history documenting a broad range of violence against diverse social and environmental backgrounds. This chapter reviews evidence for ‘pathways’ by which climate may have contributed to violence and conflict in the Ancient Near East and Egypt. It emphasized religious, ideological, and ethnic dimensions that may have been catalysed by the psychological and material impacts of extreme weather to promote violence and conflict. In particular, we study state-enacted violence by the Neo-Assyrian Empire (909-611 BCE) and internal revolt in Ptolemaic Egypt (305-30 BCE). Newly available ice-core-based dates of explosive volcanism allow the examination of societal responses to the ensuing hydroclimatic shocks (also potentially ‘ominous’ volcanic dust-veils). These can be shown to closely precede documented increases in violence and conflict, including external warfare and internal revolt.

This chapter examines and compares three genocidal events in the early modern Caribbean and Mesoamerica: the massacres of Xaragua (Hispaniola, 1503), Cholula (Mexico, 1519), and Toxcatl (Mexico, 1520; also known as the Massacre of Templo Mayor). Each of the three mass killings marked a political and military turning point in the history of Spanish military expansion in the Americas. They share other important characteristics, too. These massacres were entirely or partially planned and executed by European actors, namely Spanish officials and military entrepreneurs (conquistadores) under the leadership of fray Nicolás de Ovando, Hernán Cortés and Pedro de Alvarado respectively. Each event can be described as a genocidal massacre targeting a specific community because of its membership of a larger group: the primary objective of the European perpetrators was to provide an object lesson for the surviving members of that group (Leo Kuper). In each case, European perpetrators sought to avoid scrutiny and censure from within their own group by explaining and justifying their actions as a pre-emptive strike against indigenous plots. The tangible involvement of indigenous actors — altogether crucial in the case of the Massacre of Cholula ax— further complicates the historical analysis of a complex sources.

From Antiquity through contemporary times, depriving populations of access to food, water and other means to sustain life has been a central tool of genocide. The deliberate withholding or destruction of objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population can be used to pursue policies that systematically target groups with an impact equal to, and potentially even more widespread than, acts of killing. However, the acts that produce and sustain starvation are treated as lesser crimes than killing. When described as famine, these calamities are often presented as natural or unintentional crises of hunger or low nutrition. Drawing on historical examples that range from ancient Carthage, colonial famines, the Nazi Hungerplan, Communist agricultural and political policies, manipulation of humanitarian aid during the war in Bosnia, and genocides in the 21st century, this chapter considers the complications of assessing intent and formulating responses to mass starvation. It offers a wide-ranging overview of the critical concepts, legal developments, and key issues at stake when deliberate deprivation is imposed on a people as part of genocidal policies.

This Introduction to Volume I of The Cambridge World History of Genocide, which covers the ancient, medieval, and early modern worlds, raises questions about the nature of premodern genocide, about the meaning of genocide and genocidal intent in the premodern era, and about both perpetrators and victim groups, and about the scale, techniques, and ideologies of genocide in that long historical period in comparison to those of genocides committed in modern times. The chapter considers whether or not genocide can be considered a ‘transhistorical phenomenon’. It also asks whether mass violence in the pre-modern and early modern periods occurred in a different moral context than that of modern times, presenting some differing views on this question. Finally the chapter introduces the substantive chapters of the volume, and how they variously examine material, political, sociocultural, and ideological factors that contributed to premodern outbreaks of genocide, as well as noting some changes over time from prehistory to the early modern era.