Few scenes in Game of Thrones shocked viewers quite like the Red Wedding, when a celebration meant to bring two families together suddenly became a massacre. Yet medieval history offers plenty of its own examples of feasts, weddings and other gatherings that ended in betrayal and bloodshed.
The Red Wedding works so well because it turns something associated with hospitality and celebration into a trap. Medieval rulers and nobles understood the same possibilities: enemies could be brought together by promises of reconciliation, guests might arrive unarmed for a feast, and a wedding or religious celebration could place an entire family or political faction in one place. Medieval sources record numerous occasions when such gatherings ended with guests imprisoned, assassinated or slaughtered. Here are 15 medieval massacres and betrayals that might remind you of the infamous Red Wedding.
1. Fredegund’s Deadly Dinner — Frankish Gaul, 6th century
Fredegund ordering an execution – British Library MS Royal 16 G VI fol. 69
Queen Fredegund was already notorious for political violence when she became involved in a bloody feud between several families in Tournai. According to Gregory of Tours, the dispute began after a man neglected his wife for another woman. Her brother eventually killed him, triggering a cycle of revenge killings that left three men—Charivald, Leudovald and Waldin—as the principal survivors. Fredegund repeatedly tried to persuade their relatives to end the feud, but when diplomacy failed, she devised a more permanent solution.
The queen invited a large number of people to a feast and deliberately seated the three men together. The meal continued until after dark, and wine flowed so freely that even their servants became drunk and fell asleep around the room. Fredegund, meanwhile, had stationed three men armed with axes behind her unsuspecting guests. Gregory describes what happened next:
Three men with three axes were lined up by the Queen behind the three enemies and, as they went on chatting, these swung their weapons and decapitated them with one blow, so to speak.
The feast was over. Gregory ends his account with the wonderfully understated line: “Everyone then went home.” The killings did not entirely solve Fredegund’s problem: relatives of the murdered men subsequently sought help from King Childebert II in having the queen arrested and put to death. Fredegund, however, escaped their vengeance.
2. The Massacre of the Umayyads — Palestine, 750
Abu al-ʿAbbas al-Saffah, the first Abbasid caliph, being proclaimed caliph. From a 14th-century manuscript of Balʿami’s Tarikhnama
The overthrow of the Umayyad Caliphate by the Abbasids in 750 was followed by a brutal settling of scores. One of the most notorious episodes took place at the River Abū Fuṭrus in Palestine, where the Abbasid commander ʿAbdallāh ibn ʿAlī gathered surviving members of the Umayyad family. The ninth-century historian al-Yaʿqūbī explains that they were ordered to appear the following morning to receive gifts and payments. Eighty Umayyads came, apparently expecting favourable treatment.
Instead, ʿAbdallāh had two men armed with clubs positioned beside each of them. A poet recited verses condemning the Umayyads, after which ʿAbdallāh reminded his guests of the killing of al-Ḥusayn ibn ʿAlī and his family by the Umayyads. He then clapped his hands. According to al-Yaʿqūbī, “His men struck at their heads with the clubs, until they had finished them off.” When one of the doomed men appealed to the kinship between the Umayyads and Abbasids, ʿAbdallāh replied: “By no means! The killing of al-Ḥusayn has severed it!”
What followed made the massacre particularly gruesome. ʿAbdallāh ordered the bodies dragged together and carpets spread over them. Al-Yaʿqūbī continues: “Sitting on them, he called for food and began to eat.” The massacre was presented as vengeance for al-Ḥusayn, with ʿAbdallāh declaring, “A day like the day of al-Ḥusayn b. ʿAlī—neither of them has its equal!” Even a man from the tribe of Kalb who had accompanied the Umayyads in the hope of sharing in their good treatment was ordered beheaded.
3. The Massacre at Xingyuan — China, 830
Funerary sculpture of a Tang dynasty soldier, dating from the 7th century. Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.
In 830, soldiers at Xingyuan, in Tang China, mutinied and killed their military commissioner, Li Jiang. Emperor Wenzong responded by appointing Wen Zao as the new military commissioner of the region. Rather than confront the mutineers openly, Wen Zao arrived with loyal troops and prepared a feast for the soldiers. Once they had gathered, he ordered them to sit and wine was passed around. Meanwhile, his own soldiers quietly surrounded them.
When the trap was complete, Wen Zao began questioning the men about the murder of Li Jiang. Two of his commanders drew their swords and shouted the order to kill. The surrounding troops attacked, and the Old Book of Tang reports that around 1,000 men were beheaded. Another medieval account, the Zizhi Tongjian, gives a figure of more than 800. Those personally responsible for killing Li Jiang received particularly gruesome punishments, while 100 severed heads were offered in sacrifice to Li Jiang and another 30 to officials who had died with him. The remaining bodies were thrown into the Han River.
A more elaborate version was recorded several generations later by Wang Renyu (880–956), who collected local memories of the massacre while serving at Xingyuan. In his account, the soldiers arrived carrying bows and swords but were instructed to hang their weapons from two long ropes before sitting down. Once the wine was being served, the ropes were raised, placing the weapons beyond their reach. The gates were shut and the killing began. Wang’s version claims that more than 5,000 people died, a figure far higher than that given by the official histories. Whatever the precise details, the earlier sources leave little doubt about the central feature of the episode: Wen Zao used a feast to assemble the rebellious soldiers, surrounded them while they drank, and then gave the signal for their slaughter.
4. Olga of Kiev’s Funeral Feast — Kievan Rus’, c. 945
Olga of Kiev’s revenge against the Drevlians, depicted in the 15th-century Radziwiłł Chronicle.
Few medieval revenge stories are as elaborate as the one told about Olga of Kiev. After her husband, Prince Igor, was killed by the Drevlians while collecting tribute, Olga embarked on a series of acts of vengeance against them. According to the Primary Chronicle, one of these involved turning Igor’s funeral feast into a carefully prepared massacre.
Olga sent word to the Drevlians that she was coming to mourn her husband and instructed them to “prepare great quantities of mead in the city where you killed my husband, that I may weep over his grave and hold a funeral feast for him.” She arrived with only a small retinue, wept at Igor’s grave and ordered a burial mound to be raised. The funeral feast then began, with Olga instructing her own followers to serve the Drevlians as they drank.
Olga waited until the Drevlians were drunk before making her move. The Primary Chronicle relates that “she bade her followers fall upon them, and went about herself egging on her retinue to the massacre of the Derevlians.” It claims that 5,000 Drevlians were killed before Olga returned to Kiev and prepared an army to attack the survivors. The enormous death toll should be treated cautiously, as the chronicle was compiled generations after Olga’s lifetime and presents her revenge as an elaborate sequence of increasingly dramatic episodes. But as the medieval chronicler tells the story, the funeral feast itself was central to the trap: Olga provided the occasion for her enemies to gather, had them served until they were drunk, and only then ordered the slaughter.
5. The Bloodfeast of Roskilde — Denmark, 1157
Canute V of Denmark being killed in the presence of Valdemar I and Sweyn III during the Bloodfeast of Roskilde in 1157. From the 13th-century Sächsische Weltchronik
After years of civil war over the Danish throne, the rival kings Sweyn III, Canute V and Valdemar I finally reached a settlement in 1157. Denmark would be divided between them: Valdemar received Jutland, Canute received the islands, and Sweyn received the Scanian territories. To celebrate their reconciliation, the three kings gathered at Roskilde for a feast on 9 August. According to later medieval accounts, however, Sweyn had already decided to use the occasion to eliminate his rivals.
The festivities continued into the evening. Because they were attending a feast, Canute and Valdemar were unarmed when Sweyn’s men suddenly entered the hall with drawn swords. Canute was struck in the head and killed, along with his relative Constantine. Valdemar fought off the first attack and escaped despite suffering a wound to his thigh, while his foster brother Absalon also narrowly avoided being killed.
The plot ultimately backfired. Valdemar escaped to Jutland, gathered his supporters and confronted Sweyn at the Battle of Grathe Heath on 23 October 1157. Sweyn was defeated and killed while fleeing, leaving Valdemar as the sole king of Denmark. The attack at Roskilde subsequently became known as the Bloodfeast of Roskilde (Blodgildet i Roskilde)—an especially close medieval parallel to the Red Wedding, since a feast celebrating peace and reconciliation was deliberately turned into an opportunity to murder political rivals.
6. The Abergavenny Massacre — Wales, 1175
The ruins of Abergavenny Castle in Wales, site of the Abergavenny Massacre of 1175. Photo by David Elliott / Wikimedia Commons.
Christmas celebrations at Abergavenny Castle in 1175 ended in one of the most notorious acts of betrayal in medieval Welsh history. William de Braose, the Anglo-Norman lord of Abergavenny, invited Seisyll ap Dyfnwal, lord of Upper Gwent, his son Geoffrey, and other leading Welshmen to a Christmas feast. The gathering was presented as an opportunity for reconciliation, and the Welsh arrived expecting to enjoy William’s hospitality in safety.
Instead, William had prepared a trap. Once the Welsh leaders were gathered inside the hall, his men turned on the guests and killed them. The massacre may have been motivated by revenge: Seisyll was blamed for the earlier death of William’s uncle, Henry FitzMiles, lord of Abergavenny. Whatever William’s motives, killing men who had accepted an invitation to his own table represented a particularly serious violation of the expectations surrounding medieval hospitality.
The bloodshed did not end at the castle. William and his men proceeded to Seisyll’s home at Castell Arnallt, where Seisyll’s young son Cadwaladr was also killed. The massacre created a lasting grievance against William and helped provoke further violence in the Welsh Marches. Few episodes on this list come closer to the basic premise of the Red Wedding: enemies invited to a feast under the promise of reconciliation, only for their host to have them killed once they were gathered together.
7. The Feast after the Battle of the Kalka River — Rus’, 1223
The first major encounter between the Mongols and the princes of Rus’ ended disastrously for the latter. On 31 May 1223, a coalition of Rus’ princes and Cuman allies was defeated by a Mongol army at the Battle of the Kalka River. Several princes were killed during the fighting and pursuit, while Mstislav Romanovich of Kiev and other nobles held out in a fortified position for several days before surrendering.
Their surrender did not save them. Medieval Rus’ chronicles relate that the captured princes were placed beneath wooden boards while the Mongols sat above them. There the victors held a feast as the prisoners underneath were crushed or suffocated to death. Mstislav of Kiev was among those killed, while other princes who had escaped the battlefield were hunted down during the Mongol pursuit.
Unlike many of the other episodes on this list, the feast was not used to entice unsuspecting guests into a trap. It was instead a victory celebration in which the defeated leaders themselves became part of the grisly proceedings. The image of Mongol commanders eating and drinking while captured princes slowly died beneath their dining platform nevertheless makes the aftermath of the Battle of the Kalka River one of the more disturbing medieval feasts on this list.
8. The Burning at Flugumýri — Iceland, 1253
The farm Flugumýri in Skagafjörður, Iceland. Photo by Navaro / Wikimedia Commons
A wedding intended to help heal Iceland’s bitter political divisions instead became the prelude to one of the most notorious atrocities of the Age of the Sturlungs. In 1253, the powerful chieftain Gissur Þorvaldsson reached a reconciliation with two of his opponents, Hrafn Oddsson and Sturla Þórðarson. As part of the settlement, Gissur’s son Hallur was betrothed to Sturla’s thirteen-year-old daughter Ingibjörg, and their wedding was arranged for Flugumýri in northern Iceland.
The Saga of the Icelanders, written by Sturla Þórðarson, describes an extraordinary gathering. Nearly one hundred guests attended, including many of the leading men of the surrounding districts. Once everyone was seated, Gissur rose and spoke about the reconciliation that had brought them together:
“Here as goodly a group of men is met together as one can find in our country.”
Gissur declared that the quarrels dividing them had now been brought to “a good end” and added, “I hope that now with God’s grace our reconciliation will fare well in our hands.” He wanted the wedding feast to “cement our fellowship in all trustworthiness.”
For a time, it appeared to do exactly that. Tables were set throughout the hall, fires were lit, and the guests were served plentiful quantities of mead and ale. The saga calls it “one of the best celebrations there had ever been in Iceland in those days.” Another magnificent feast followed the next day, with former enemies drinking together from the same silver cup and exchanging kisses. When the celebrations ended, Gissur presented departing guests with gifts.
Yet even while the wedding was taking place, Gissur’s enemies were preparing to attack. According to the saga, Eyjólfur Þorsteinsson and his allies planned to kill Gissur and his sons while they were still gathered at Flugumýri. On the night of 22 October, after most of the wedding guests had departed, the attackers surrounded the farm. When they were unable to overcome its defenders, they set fire to the buildings.
The result was catastrophic. The saga records that twenty-five people died in the burning. Gissur’s son Ísleifur was among those killed, while the bridegroom Hallur escaped the flames with terrible wounds and died later. Gissur’s wife Gróa also perished. Gissur himself survived by hiding in a vat of whey while his enemies searched the room around him.
The following morning brought one of the most poignant scenes in Sturlunga saga. Gissur returned to the ruins as the bodies of his family were recovered. Ísleif’s remains were carried out on a shield, followed by what remained of Gróa. Gissur turned to Páll Kolbeinsson and said:
“Pál, kinsman, you may now look upon Isleif my son, and upon Gróa my wife.”
The saga then adds simply:
And Pál saw that Gizur turned away, and saw that tears started from his eyes like hailstones.
The destruction of Flugumýri shocked contemporaries. The saga says that Iceland’s wiser men considered it “perhaps the most significant event there had ever been here in Iceland.” Gissur would survive and seek vengeance against those responsible, but the wedding that had been intended to cement a political reconciliation instead became inseparable from one of the bloodiest episodes of thirteenth-century Iceland.
Dante encounters Alberigo Manfredi among the betrayers of guests in Hell. Illustration of Canto XXXIII of Dante’s Inferno by Giovanni Stradano, 1587.
In 1285, Alberigo Manfredi of Faenza turned a banquet of reconciliation into an act of murder so infamous that Dante would later place him among the betrayers of guests in the Inferno. Alberigo had been involved in a bitter dispute with his relative Manfredo Manfredi. Pretending that he wanted to settle their differences, Alberigo invited Manfredo and his son Alberghetto to a banquet at his residence at Cesate.
The meal proceeded peacefully until Alberigo gave a prearranged signal to his servants. According to the tradition repeated by early commentators on Dante, he called for the fruit to be brought in. Instead, armed men appeared and attacked Manfredo and Alberghetto, killing them. The phrase associated with the murders, “the fruit of Friar Alberigo,” consequently became proverbial for treachery.
Dante gave Alberigo an especially memorable punishment in Canto XXXIII of the Inferno. He encounters him in Ptolomea, the part of the ninth circle reserved for those who betrayed their guests. Alberigo explains that the souls of particularly wicked traitors can fall into Hell even before their bodies die on earth. When Dante asks who he is, Alberigo replies:
I am Friar Alberigo; I am he who brought the evil fruit from the good garden, and here I receive a date for every fig.
The massacre was small compared with some of the bloodbaths on this list, but its violation of hospitality made it particularly shocking to medieval observers. Alberigo had offered reconciliation, shared his table with his enemies and then used the banquet itself to arrange their deaths. Dante’s decision to condemn him specifically as a betrayer of guests shows just how seriously such an act could be regarded in medieval culture.
10. The Nyköping Banquet — Sweden, 1317
King Birger of Sweden has his brothers, Dukes Erik and Valdemar, seized following the Nyköping Banquet in 1317.
In December 1317, King Birger of Sweden invited his younger brothers, Dukes Erik and Valdemar, to Nyköping Castle. Relations between the brothers had long been troubled. Eleven years earlier, Erik and Valdemar had seized Birger during the so-called Håtuna Game and held him captive. By 1317 they had supposedly been reconciled, and Valdemar assured the more suspicious Erik that their brother had “utterly changed his mind” and now had “nothing but feelings of friendship and love for us.”
The Chronicle of Duke Erik, written within a few decades of the events, portrays the banquet as an elaborate act of deception. Birger greeted his brothers warmly, while their followers were encouraged to lodge outside the castle. The chronicler describes the feast:
When the lords sat down to eat, they were shown much honour and addressed with many fair words. No tongue can describe the humility combined with deceit and falseness that they showed, in the same way that Judas acted against Christ. I heard before Easter how they read in Scripture about Judas that he betrayed his fealty to Our Lord; for that reason he shall reside in hell and suffer eternal torments. All those who deceitfully murder and betray should end up in the same way in that torment, for which there will never be mercy. Those who betrayed Duke Erik ought to fear mightily for themselves.
There was no shortage of mead and wine there, nor of fair and mild words. It is said that one never saw the queen so happy as then; she was not lacking in joy.
Once the banquet was over and the dukes had gone to bed, their knights were sent down into the town and the castle gates were barred. Crossbowmen armed themselves, and Birger’s men burst into the room where Erik and Valdemar were sleeping. Valdemar attempted to fight, but Erik realised that resistance was hopeless. Birger then appeared and reminded his brothers of their earlier betrayal:
“Do you recall anything of the Håtuna game? I remember it very well. This one is no better than that was! This time it is you who have to comply with me.”
The dukes were bound, taken barefoot into the castle tower and shackled. According to the Chronicle, Birger eventually allowed his brothers to starve to death, although the precise circumstances of their deaths remain uncertain. The modern editors caution that the work is strongly sympathetic to Erik and that some of its dramatic details may be literary embellishments. Nevertheless, the basic outcome is clear: a royal banquet ostensibly marked by hospitality and reconciliation ended with two of the king’s brothers imprisoned and, not long afterwards, dead
11. The Black Dinner — Scotland, 1440
The Black Dinner of 1440, with the traditional black bull’s head being presented before William Douglas, 6th Earl of Douglas, and his brother David. Illustration by Munro S. Orr from The Story of Edinburgh Castle (1913).
In 1440, sixteen-year-old William Douglas, 6th Earl of Douglas, and his younger brother David were invited to Edinburgh Castle, where the ten-year-old King James II was staying. The powerful Douglas family had become a major force in Scottish politics, while the king was still a child and government was effectively controlled by rival nobles. The invitation appeared friendly, and the young Douglases were welcomed and entertained at the royal table.
During or shortly after the meal, however, William and David were seized. They were subjected to a hurried trial on accusations of treason and then taken into the castle courtyard and beheaded. The king himself appears to have had little or no control over what happened; later accounts even portray the young James pleading unsuccessfully for the lives of his guests.
The episode became known as the Black Dinner, and later tradition made it considerably more theatrical. In the best-known version, a black bull’s head—the symbol of death—was carried into the dining hall and placed before William Douglas, signalling that the feast had become a trap.
Even without the bull’s head, the Black Dinner has obvious similarities to the Red Wedding. In fact, George R. R. Martin has specifically mentioned it as one of the historical events that helped inspire the episode: young nobles entered a royal castle under the protection of hospitality, sat down to eat, and discovered too late that their hosts intended to kill them.
Woodcut from the title page of a 1499 pamphlet published by Markus Ayrer in Nuremberg. It depicts Vlad III “the Impaler” (identified as Dracole wyade = Draculea voivode) dining among the impaled corpses of his victims – Wikimedia Commons
On Easter 1459, Vlad III Dracula reportedly invited hostile Wallachian boyars to a banquet at Târgoviște and then had them seized and impaled. The Geschichte Dracole Waide, a hostile German account written a few years later, claimed that 500 nobles were killed. Modern research suggests that the massacre was real, but on a considerably smaller scale.
Historian Dénes Harai has recently reassessed the numbers behind Vlad’s notorious mass impalements. The room in which the banquet was supposedly held measured only about 12 by 7 metres, while earlier estimates based on archaeological evidence suggest that it could accommodate roughly 40 people. Another historian found that 11 of Vlad’s 23 known councillors disappear from the documentary record, supporting the idea that Vlad really did carry out a substantial purge of the Wallachian elite.
Harai therefore estimates that the Bloody Easter massacre probably involved between 40 and 50 impalements, less than one-tenth of the 500 claimed by the German account. He argues that this discrepancy reflects a broader pattern in which stories about Vlad systematically inflated the numbers killed in his impalements.
Raphael’s Entombment (1507), commissioned by Atalanta Baglioni in memory of her son Grifonetto, one of the conspirators in the Baglioni “Red Wedding” of 1500. Galleria Borghese, Rome.
In the summer of 1500, Astorre Baglioni married Lavinia in Perugia, setting off days of extraordinarily lavish celebrations. Francesco Matarazzo, a contemporary chronicler of the city, describes Astorre dressed in gold, elaborate pageants and tournaments, and banquets overflowing with food and confectionery. The celebrations also brought almost the entire Baglioni family together—something their enemies within the family quickly recognised as an opportunity.
Matarazzo explains that the conspirators initially intended to carry out their attack during the wedding feast itself:
And they determined to do the deed during the marriage festival of the High and Mighty Messer Astorre; to which were gathered all the men of the High and Mighty House of the Baglioni, save only Marcantonio, son of His Highness Guido, who as I told you was taking the waters in the Kingdom of Naples. For they who had devised the betrayal thought that the time had come when they could take their enemies all at a single cast, while they were at the marriage feast; for the men were many and save so they could not take them all at a single cast, and so they determined to do the deed during the marriage feast.
The conspirators ultimately decided they could not make “a clean job of it” during the feast and postponed their attack. On the night of 14–15 July, they gathered their supporters and assigned groups of armed men to the bedrooms of their intended victims. Astorre, still staying in the house connected with his wedding celebrations, was one of their principal targets.
Matarazzo gives a particularly dramatic account of the bridegroom’s murder:
And when they had opened the door they saw His Highness Messer Astorre risen from his bed: and he had no arms. But as I have been more certainly informed, Filippo called him; and his Lordship rose and opened, trusting the man who was his enemy, and when he had opened and saw all the armed men he knew that he was betrayed with a great betrayal. And that traitor Filippo and Ottaviano da Corgnie were they who slew him; and his Lordship said nothing save that he called the traitor Filippo by name; after that he said, ‘Alack that I Astorre die like a coward’: and he spoke no word more. And his bride saw all that happened, and, eager to save her husband, flung herself upon him, and with her gracious body made a shield for her husband; but they dealt him so many wounds that His Highness Astorre died, and one-fifth of the wounds he received would have sufficed for his death, and his wife was wounded once.
And when he was dead the traitor Filippo thrust his hand into the breast of the noble Lord through a wound he had in his breast, and, as men say, dragged out the heart of him and bit it with his teeth, even as if he had been aforetime his deadly enemy, and had of his Lordship received some great hurt. Afterwards they dragged him down the stairs, as if he had been a mere hind and a base fellow, and thrust him out into the street naked as his mother bore him
Astorre’s father Guido and his brother Gismondo were also killed, along with Semonetto Baglioni. Other intended victims escaped, most importantly Giovan Paolo Baglioni, who soon returned and overthrew the conspirators. Matarazzo later describes Guido, Astorre and Gismondo being carried to burial on bare biers with little ceremony, a final humiliation inflicted by their enemies.
The episode became remembered as the Nozze Rosse, or “Red Wedding.” In this case, the comparison is particularly apt: the conspirators explicitly chose Astorre’s wedding because it brought nearly all their enemies together in one place, and their original intention was to kill them while they were still at the marriage feast.
14. The Stockholm Bloodbath — Sweden, 1520
The Stockholm Bloodbath of 1520, depicted in the Blodbadstavlan. This drawing was made by Johan Litheim in 1690–1691, based on an earlier engraving that ultimately copied a woodcut commissioned by Gustav Vasa in 1524. National Library of Sweden.
In November 1520, Christian II of Denmark was crowned King of Sweden after years of conflict between supporters of the Kalmar Union and those of the Swedish regent Sten Sture the Younger. Christian had promised an amnesty to his former enemies, and his coronation in Stockholm on 4 November was followed by several days of festivities at Tre Kronor Castle. The celebrations were also supposed to represent a reconciliation after the bitter struggle for control of Sweden.
On 7 November, however, the castle gates were closed. Archbishop Gustav Trolle appeared before the king and demanded compensation for the treatment he and the Church had suffered at the hands of Sten Sture and his supporters. The problem for Christian was that many of the people involved were protected by his amnesty. The solution was to treat their actions against Trolle and the Church as heresy, an offence for which the earlier promises of forgiveness could be circumvented.
The executions began the following day in Stockholm’s Stortorget. Two bishops were among the first victims, followed by members of the Swedish council, noblemen, mayors and other prominent citizens. The Svenskt Biografiskt Lexikon gives a total of 82 people executed, while the Swedish History Museum describes the number as nearly 100. The victims were publicly beheaded, turning what had begun as a royal coronation and reconciliation celebration into the Stockholm Bloodbath.
The resemblance to the Red Wedding comes less from the executions themselves than from what preceded them. Christian’s defeated opponents had been promised reconciliation and gathered in Stockholm for his coronation festivities; only days later, many of those same political enemies were dead.
15. The St Bartholomew’s Day Massacre — France, 1572
The St Bartholomew’s Day Massacre of 1572, depicted by the Huguenot painter François Dubois, c. 1572–1584. Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts, Lausanne.
The most famous example on this list comes just beyond the traditional end of the Middle Ages. On 18 August 1572, the Protestant Henry of Navarre, the future Henry IV of France, married Marguerite de Valois, the Catholic sister of King Charles IX. The marriage was intended to help reconcile France’s Catholics and Huguenots after years of religious warfare. It also brought many of the most important Huguenot nobles to overwhelmingly Catholic Paris, where the wedding was followed by several days of festivities.
Four days after the wedding, an assassin shot and wounded one of the leading Huguenots, Admiral Gaspard de Coligny. Tensions rapidly escalated, and during the night of 23–24 August the decision was made to eliminate Coligny and other prominent Huguenots. Coligny was murdered in his lodgings, while Protestant nobles were killed at the Louvre and elsewhere in Paris. What began as a targeted attack soon developed into a much wider massacre.
Marguerite herself later recalled how the violence reached her bedroom on the morning of 24 August:
As soon as I beheld it was broad day, I apprehended all the danger my sister had spoken of was over; and being inclined to sleep, I bade my nurse make the door fast, and I applied myself to take some repose. In about an hour I was awakened by a violent noise at the door, made with both hands and feet, and a voice calling out, ‘Navarre! Navarre!’ My nurse, supposing the King my husband to be at the door, hastened to open it, when a gentleman, named M. de Teian, ran in, and threw himself immediately upon my bed. He had received a wound in his arm from a sword, and another by a pike, and was then pursued by four archers, who followed him into the bedchamber. Perceiving these last, I jumped out of bed, and the poor gentleman after me, holding me fast by the waist. I did not then know him; neither was I sure that he came to do me no harm, or whether the archers were in pursuit of him or me. In this situation I screamed aloud, and he cried out likewise, for our fright was mutual.
The captain of the guard intervened and drove away the attackers, while Marguerite secured the wounded man’s life and had his injuries treated. She recalled that she had to change her shift because it was covered in his blood. As she made her way through the Louvre, she encountered still more violence, including another man who was struck with a pike and fell dead at her feet.
The killing continued in Paris for several days and subsequently spread to other French cities. Estimates of the number killed vary enormously, but thousands of Huguenots died. Henry of Navarre survived, although he was compelled to convert to Catholicism and remained effectively a prisoner at the French court before eventually escaping in 1576.
The St Bartholomew’s Day Massacre did not actually take place at the wedding feast—the killing began six days after the marriage. Nevertheless, the connection between the two events was important. A marriage intended to promote reconciliation had brought many prominent Huguenots together in Paris, only for celebrations of peace to be followed by one of the most infamous massacres in French history.
These episodes reveal why the Red Wedding feels so disturbingly plausible. Medieval politics depended heavily on personal meetings, hospitality and public displays of reconciliation, making weddings, banquets and other celebrations ideal opportunities to bring rivals together in one place. Most such gatherings ended peacefully, but when the rules of hospitality were deliberately broken, the resulting betrayals could become notorious for generations. From royal feasts to wedding celebrations, the promise of friendship could sometimes provide the perfect setting for murder.
You can read George R. R. Martin’s fictional version of the Red Wedding in A Storm of Swords, the third novel in his A Song of Ice and Fire series.
Top Image: Bern, Burgerbibliothek, Mss.h.h.I.16, p. 62 – Diebold Schilling, Spiezer Chronik http://www.e-codices.ch/en/bbb/Mss-hh-I0016/62
Few scenes in Game of Thrones shocked viewers quite like the Red Wedding, when a celebration meant to bring two families together suddenly became a massacre. Yet medieval history offers plenty of its own examples of feasts, weddings and other gatherings that ended in betrayal and bloodshed.
The Red Wedding works so well because it turns something associated with hospitality and celebration into a trap. Medieval rulers and nobles understood the same possibilities: enemies could be brought together by promises of reconciliation, guests might arrive unarmed for a feast, and a wedding or religious celebration could place an entire family or political faction in one place. Medieval sources record numerous occasions when such gatherings ended with guests imprisoned, assassinated or slaughtered. Here are 15 medieval massacres and betrayals that might remind you of the infamous Red Wedding.
1. Fredegund’s Deadly Dinner — Frankish Gaul, 6th century
Queen Fredegund was already notorious for political violence when she became involved in a bloody feud between several families in Tournai. According to Gregory of Tours, the dispute began after a man neglected his wife for another woman. Her brother eventually killed him, triggering a cycle of revenge killings that left three men—Charivald, Leudovald and Waldin—as the principal survivors. Fredegund repeatedly tried to persuade their relatives to end the feud, but when diplomacy failed, she devised a more permanent solution.
The queen invited a large number of people to a feast and deliberately seated the three men together. The meal continued until after dark, and wine flowed so freely that even their servants became drunk and fell asleep around the room. Fredegund, meanwhile, had stationed three men armed with axes behind her unsuspecting guests. Gregory describes what happened next:
Three men with three axes were lined up by the Queen behind the three enemies and, as they went on chatting, these swung their weapons and decapitated them with one blow, so to speak.
The feast was over. Gregory ends his account with the wonderfully understated line: “Everyone then went home.” The killings did not entirely solve Fredegund’s problem: relatives of the murdered men subsequently sought help from King Childebert II in having the queen arrested and put to death. Fredegund, however, escaped their vengeance.
2. The Massacre of the Umayyads — Palestine, 750
The overthrow of the Umayyad Caliphate by the Abbasids in 750 was followed by a brutal settling of scores. One of the most notorious episodes took place at the River Abū Fuṭrus in Palestine, where the Abbasid commander ʿAbdallāh ibn ʿAlī gathered surviving members of the Umayyad family. The ninth-century historian al-Yaʿqūbī explains that they were ordered to appear the following morning to receive gifts and payments. Eighty Umayyads came, apparently expecting favourable treatment.
Instead, ʿAbdallāh had two men armed with clubs positioned beside each of them. A poet recited verses condemning the Umayyads, after which ʿAbdallāh reminded his guests of the killing of al-Ḥusayn ibn ʿAlī and his family by the Umayyads. He then clapped his hands. According to al-Yaʿqūbī, “His men struck at their heads with the clubs, until they had finished them off.” When one of the doomed men appealed to the kinship between the Umayyads and Abbasids, ʿAbdallāh replied: “By no means! The killing of al-Ḥusayn has severed it!”
What followed made the massacre particularly gruesome. ʿAbdallāh ordered the bodies dragged together and carpets spread over them. Al-Yaʿqūbī continues: “Sitting on them, he called for food and began to eat.” The massacre was presented as vengeance for al-Ḥusayn, with ʿAbdallāh declaring, “A day like the day of al-Ḥusayn b. ʿAlī—neither of them has its equal!” Even a man from the tribe of Kalb who had accompanied the Umayyads in the hope of sharing in their good treatment was ordered beheaded.
3. The Massacre at Xingyuan — China, 830
In 830, soldiers at Xingyuan, in Tang China, mutinied and killed their military commissioner, Li Jiang. Emperor Wenzong responded by appointing Wen Zao as the new military commissioner of the region. Rather than confront the mutineers openly, Wen Zao arrived with loyal troops and prepared a feast for the soldiers. Once they had gathered, he ordered them to sit and wine was passed around. Meanwhile, his own soldiers quietly surrounded them.
When the trap was complete, Wen Zao began questioning the men about the murder of Li Jiang. Two of his commanders drew their swords and shouted the order to kill. The surrounding troops attacked, and the Old Book of Tang reports that around 1,000 men were beheaded. Another medieval account, the Zizhi Tongjian, gives a figure of more than 800. Those personally responsible for killing Li Jiang received particularly gruesome punishments, while 100 severed heads were offered in sacrifice to Li Jiang and another 30 to officials who had died with him. The remaining bodies were thrown into the Han River.
A more elaborate version was recorded several generations later by Wang Renyu (880–956), who collected local memories of the massacre while serving at Xingyuan. In his account, the soldiers arrived carrying bows and swords but were instructed to hang their weapons from two long ropes before sitting down. Once the wine was being served, the ropes were raised, placing the weapons beyond their reach. The gates were shut and the killing began. Wang’s version claims that more than 5,000 people died, a figure far higher than that given by the official histories. Whatever the precise details, the earlier sources leave little doubt about the central feature of the episode: Wen Zao used a feast to assemble the rebellious soldiers, surrounded them while they drank, and then gave the signal for their slaughter.
4. Olga of Kiev’s Funeral Feast — Kievan Rus’, c. 945
Few medieval revenge stories are as elaborate as the one told about Olga of Kiev. After her husband, Prince Igor, was killed by the Drevlians while collecting tribute, Olga embarked on a series of acts of vengeance against them. According to the Primary Chronicle, one of these involved turning Igor’s funeral feast into a carefully prepared massacre.
Olga sent word to the Drevlians that she was coming to mourn her husband and instructed them to “prepare great quantities of mead in the city where you killed my husband, that I may weep over his grave and hold a funeral feast for him.” She arrived with only a small retinue, wept at Igor’s grave and ordered a burial mound to be raised. The funeral feast then began, with Olga instructing her own followers to serve the Drevlians as they drank.
Olga waited until the Drevlians were drunk before making her move. The Primary Chronicle relates that “she bade her followers fall upon them, and went about herself egging on her retinue to the massacre of the Derevlians.” It claims that 5,000 Drevlians were killed before Olga returned to Kiev and prepared an army to attack the survivors. The enormous death toll should be treated cautiously, as the chronicle was compiled generations after Olga’s lifetime and presents her revenge as an elaborate sequence of increasingly dramatic episodes. But as the medieval chronicler tells the story, the funeral feast itself was central to the trap: Olga provided the occasion for her enemies to gather, had them served until they were drunk, and only then ordered the slaughter.
5. The Bloodfeast of Roskilde — Denmark, 1157
After years of civil war over the Danish throne, the rival kings Sweyn III, Canute V and Valdemar I finally reached a settlement in 1157. Denmark would be divided between them: Valdemar received Jutland, Canute received the islands, and Sweyn received the Scanian territories. To celebrate their reconciliation, the three kings gathered at Roskilde for a feast on 9 August. According to later medieval accounts, however, Sweyn had already decided to use the occasion to eliminate his rivals.
The festivities continued into the evening. Because they were attending a feast, Canute and Valdemar were unarmed when Sweyn’s men suddenly entered the hall with drawn swords. Canute was struck in the head and killed, along with his relative Constantine. Valdemar fought off the first attack and escaped despite suffering a wound to his thigh, while his foster brother Absalon also narrowly avoided being killed.
The plot ultimately backfired. Valdemar escaped to Jutland, gathered his supporters and confronted Sweyn at the Battle of Grathe Heath on 23 October 1157. Sweyn was defeated and killed while fleeing, leaving Valdemar as the sole king of Denmark. The attack at Roskilde subsequently became known as the Bloodfeast of Roskilde (Blodgildet i Roskilde)—an especially close medieval parallel to the Red Wedding, since a feast celebrating peace and reconciliation was deliberately turned into an opportunity to murder political rivals.
6. The Abergavenny Massacre — Wales, 1175
Christmas celebrations at Abergavenny Castle in 1175 ended in one of the most notorious acts of betrayal in medieval Welsh history. William de Braose, the Anglo-Norman lord of Abergavenny, invited Seisyll ap Dyfnwal, lord of Upper Gwent, his son Geoffrey, and other leading Welshmen to a Christmas feast. The gathering was presented as an opportunity for reconciliation, and the Welsh arrived expecting to enjoy William’s hospitality in safety.
Instead, William had prepared a trap. Once the Welsh leaders were gathered inside the hall, his men turned on the guests and killed them. The massacre may have been motivated by revenge: Seisyll was blamed for the earlier death of William’s uncle, Henry FitzMiles, lord of Abergavenny. Whatever William’s motives, killing men who had accepted an invitation to his own table represented a particularly serious violation of the expectations surrounding medieval hospitality.
The bloodshed did not end at the castle. William and his men proceeded to Seisyll’s home at Castell Arnallt, where Seisyll’s young son Cadwaladr was also killed. The massacre created a lasting grievance against William and helped provoke further violence in the Welsh Marches. Few episodes on this list come closer to the basic premise of the Red Wedding: enemies invited to a feast under the promise of reconciliation, only for their host to have them killed once they were gathered together.
7. The Feast after the Battle of the Kalka River — Rus’, 1223
The first major encounter between the Mongols and the princes of Rus’ ended disastrously for the latter. On 31 May 1223, a coalition of Rus’ princes and Cuman allies was defeated by a Mongol army at the Battle of the Kalka River. Several princes were killed during the fighting and pursuit, while Mstislav Romanovich of Kiev and other nobles held out in a fortified position for several days before surrendering.
Their surrender did not save them. Medieval Rus’ chronicles relate that the captured princes were placed beneath wooden boards while the Mongols sat above them. There the victors held a feast as the prisoners underneath were crushed or suffocated to death. Mstislav of Kiev was among those killed, while other princes who had escaped the battlefield were hunted down during the Mongol pursuit.
Unlike many of the other episodes on this list, the feast was not used to entice unsuspecting guests into a trap. It was instead a victory celebration in which the defeated leaders themselves became part of the grisly proceedings. The image of Mongol commanders eating and drinking while captured princes slowly died beneath their dining platform nevertheless makes the aftermath of the Battle of the Kalka River one of the more disturbing medieval feasts on this list.
8. The Burning at Flugumýri — Iceland, 1253
A wedding intended to help heal Iceland’s bitter political divisions instead became the prelude to one of the most notorious atrocities of the Age of the Sturlungs. In 1253, the powerful chieftain Gissur Þorvaldsson reached a reconciliation with two of his opponents, Hrafn Oddsson and Sturla Þórðarson. As part of the settlement, Gissur’s son Hallur was betrothed to Sturla’s thirteen-year-old daughter Ingibjörg, and their wedding was arranged for Flugumýri in northern Iceland.
The Saga of the Icelanders, written by Sturla Þórðarson, describes an extraordinary gathering. Nearly one hundred guests attended, including many of the leading men of the surrounding districts. Once everyone was seated, Gissur rose and spoke about the reconciliation that had brought them together:
“Here as goodly a group of men is met together as one can find in our country.”
Gissur declared that the quarrels dividing them had now been brought to “a good end” and added, “I hope that now with God’s grace our reconciliation will fare well in our hands.” He wanted the wedding feast to “cement our fellowship in all trustworthiness.”
For a time, it appeared to do exactly that. Tables were set throughout the hall, fires were lit, and the guests were served plentiful quantities of mead and ale. The saga calls it “one of the best celebrations there had ever been in Iceland in those days.” Another magnificent feast followed the next day, with former enemies drinking together from the same silver cup and exchanging kisses. When the celebrations ended, Gissur presented departing guests with gifts.
Yet even while the wedding was taking place, Gissur’s enemies were preparing to attack. According to the saga, Eyjólfur Þorsteinsson and his allies planned to kill Gissur and his sons while they were still gathered at Flugumýri. On the night of 22 October, after most of the wedding guests had departed, the attackers surrounded the farm. When they were unable to overcome its defenders, they set fire to the buildings.
The result was catastrophic. The saga records that twenty-five people died in the burning. Gissur’s son Ísleifur was among those killed, while the bridegroom Hallur escaped the flames with terrible wounds and died later. Gissur’s wife Gróa also perished. Gissur himself survived by hiding in a vat of whey while his enemies searched the room around him.
The following morning brought one of the most poignant scenes in Sturlunga saga. Gissur returned to the ruins as the bodies of his family were recovered. Ísleif’s remains were carried out on a shield, followed by what remained of Gróa. Gissur turned to Páll Kolbeinsson and said:
“Pál, kinsman, you may now look upon Isleif my son, and upon Gróa my wife.”
The saga then adds simply:
And Pál saw that Gizur turned away, and saw that tears started from his eyes like hailstones.
The destruction of Flugumýri shocked contemporaries. The saga says that Iceland’s wiser men considered it “perhaps the most significant event there had ever been here in Iceland.” Gissur would survive and seek vengeance against those responsible, but the wedding that had been intended to cement a political reconciliation instead became inseparable from one of the bloodiest episodes of thirteenth-century Iceland.
9. Alberigo Manfredi’s Deadly Banquet — Italy, 1285
In 1285, Alberigo Manfredi of Faenza turned a banquet of reconciliation into an act of murder so infamous that Dante would later place him among the betrayers of guests in the Inferno. Alberigo had been involved in a bitter dispute with his relative Manfredo Manfredi. Pretending that he wanted to settle their differences, Alberigo invited Manfredo and his son Alberghetto to a banquet at his residence at Cesate.
The meal proceeded peacefully until Alberigo gave a prearranged signal to his servants. According to the tradition repeated by early commentators on Dante, he called for the fruit to be brought in. Instead, armed men appeared and attacked Manfredo and Alberghetto, killing them. The phrase associated with the murders, “the fruit of Friar Alberigo,” consequently became proverbial for treachery.
Dante gave Alberigo an especially memorable punishment in Canto XXXIII of the Inferno. He encounters him in Ptolomea, the part of the ninth circle reserved for those who betrayed their guests. Alberigo explains that the souls of particularly wicked traitors can fall into Hell even before their bodies die on earth. When Dante asks who he is, Alberigo replies:
I am Friar Alberigo; I am he
who brought the evil fruit from the good garden,
and here I receive a date for every fig.
The massacre was small compared with some of the bloodbaths on this list, but its violation of hospitality made it particularly shocking to medieval observers. Alberigo had offered reconciliation, shared his table with his enemies and then used the banquet itself to arrange their deaths. Dante’s decision to condemn him specifically as a betrayer of guests shows just how seriously such an act could be regarded in medieval culture.
10. The Nyköping Banquet — Sweden, 1317
In December 1317, King Birger of Sweden invited his younger brothers, Dukes Erik and Valdemar, to Nyköping Castle. Relations between the brothers had long been troubled. Eleven years earlier, Erik and Valdemar had seized Birger during the so-called Håtuna Game and held him captive. By 1317 they had supposedly been reconciled, and Valdemar assured the more suspicious Erik that their brother had “utterly changed his mind” and now had “nothing but feelings of friendship and love for us.”
The Chronicle of Duke Erik, written within a few decades of the events, portrays the banquet as an elaborate act of deception. Birger greeted his brothers warmly, while their followers were encouraged to lodge outside the castle. The chronicler describes the feast:
When the lords sat down to eat, they were shown much honour and addressed with many fair words. No tongue can describe the humility combined with deceit and falseness that they showed, in the same way that Judas acted against Christ. I heard before Easter how they read in Scripture about Judas that he betrayed his fealty to Our Lord; for that reason he shall reside in hell and suffer eternal torments. All those who deceitfully murder and betray should end up in the same way in that torment, for which there will never be mercy. Those who betrayed Duke Erik ought to fear mightily for themselves.
There was no shortage of mead and wine there, nor of fair and mild words. It is said that one never saw the queen so happy as then; she was not lacking in joy.
Once the banquet was over and the dukes had gone to bed, their knights were sent down into the town and the castle gates were barred. Crossbowmen armed themselves, and Birger’s men burst into the room where Erik and Valdemar were sleeping. Valdemar attempted to fight, but Erik realised that resistance was hopeless. Birger then appeared and reminded his brothers of their earlier betrayal:
“Do you recall anything of the Håtuna game? I remember it very well. This one is no better than that was! This time it is you who have to comply with me.”
The dukes were bound, taken barefoot into the castle tower and shackled. According to the Chronicle, Birger eventually allowed his brothers to starve to death, although the precise circumstances of their deaths remain uncertain. The modern editors caution that the work is strongly sympathetic to Erik and that some of its dramatic details may be literary embellishments. Nevertheless, the basic outcome is clear: a royal banquet ostensibly marked by hospitality and reconciliation ended with two of the king’s brothers imprisoned and, not long afterwards, dead
11. The Black Dinner — Scotland, 1440
In 1440, sixteen-year-old William Douglas, 6th Earl of Douglas, and his younger brother David were invited to Edinburgh Castle, where the ten-year-old King James II was staying. The powerful Douglas family had become a major force in Scottish politics, while the king was still a child and government was effectively controlled by rival nobles. The invitation appeared friendly, and the young Douglases were welcomed and entertained at the royal table.
During or shortly after the meal, however, William and David were seized. They were subjected to a hurried trial on accusations of treason and then taken into the castle courtyard and beheaded. The king himself appears to have had little or no control over what happened; later accounts even portray the young James pleading unsuccessfully for the lives of his guests.
The episode became known as the Black Dinner, and later tradition made it considerably more theatrical. In the best-known version, a black bull’s head—the symbol of death—was carried into the dining hall and placed before William Douglas, signalling that the feast had become a trap.
Even without the bull’s head, the Black Dinner has obvious similarities to the Red Wedding. In fact, George R. R. Martin has specifically mentioned it as one of the historical events that helped inspire the episode: young nobles entered a royal castle under the protection of hospitality, sat down to eat, and discovered too late that their hosts intended to kill them.
12. Vlad Dracula’s Bloody Easter — Wallachia, 1459
On Easter 1459, Vlad III Dracula reportedly invited hostile Wallachian boyars to a banquet at Târgoviște and then had them seized and impaled. The Geschichte Dracole Waide, a hostile German account written a few years later, claimed that 500 nobles were killed. Modern research suggests that the massacre was real, but on a considerably smaller scale.
Historian Dénes Harai has recently reassessed the numbers behind Vlad’s notorious mass impalements. The room in which the banquet was supposedly held measured only about 12 by 7 metres, while earlier estimates based on archaeological evidence suggest that it could accommodate roughly 40 people. Another historian found that 11 of Vlad’s 23 known councillors disappear from the documentary record, supporting the idea that Vlad really did carry out a substantial purge of the Wallachian elite.
Harai therefore estimates that the Bloody Easter massacre probably involved between 40 and 50 impalements, less than one-tenth of the 500 claimed by the German account. He argues that this discrepancy reflects a broader pattern in which stories about Vlad systematically inflated the numbers killed in his impalements.
Click here to read Dénes Harai’s article, “Counting the Stakes: A Reassessment of Vlad III Dracula’s Practice of Collective Impalements in Fifteenth-Century South-eastern Europe”
13. The Baglioni Red Wedding — Perugia, 1500
In the summer of 1500, Astorre Baglioni married Lavinia in Perugia, setting off days of extraordinarily lavish celebrations. Francesco Matarazzo, a contemporary chronicler of the city, describes Astorre dressed in gold, elaborate pageants and tournaments, and banquets overflowing with food and confectionery. The celebrations also brought almost the entire Baglioni family together—something their enemies within the family quickly recognised as an opportunity.
Matarazzo explains that the conspirators initially intended to carry out their attack during the wedding feast itself:
And they determined to do the deed during the marriage festival of the High and Mighty Messer Astorre; to which were gathered all the men of the High and Mighty House of the Baglioni, save only Marcantonio, son of His Highness Guido, who as I told you was taking the waters in the Kingdom of Naples. For they who had devised the betrayal thought that the time had come when they could take their enemies all at a single cast, while they were at the marriage feast; for the men were many and save so they could not take them all at a single cast, and so they determined to do the deed during the marriage feast.
The conspirators ultimately decided they could not make “a clean job of it” during the feast and postponed their attack. On the night of 14–15 July, they gathered their supporters and assigned groups of armed men to the bedrooms of their intended victims. Astorre, still staying in the house connected with his wedding celebrations, was one of their principal targets.
Matarazzo gives a particularly dramatic account of the bridegroom’s murder:
And when they had opened the door they saw His Highness Messer Astorre risen from his bed: and he had no arms. But as I have been more certainly informed, Filippo called him; and his Lordship rose and opened, trusting the man who was his enemy, and when he had opened and saw all the armed men he knew that he was betrayed with a great betrayal. And that traitor Filippo and Ottaviano da Corgnie were they who slew him; and his Lordship said nothing save that he called the traitor Filippo by name; after that he said, ‘Alack that I Astorre die like a coward’: and he spoke no word more. And his bride saw all that happened, and, eager to save her husband, flung herself upon him, and with her gracious body made a shield for her husband; but they dealt him so many wounds that His Highness Astorre died, and one-fifth of the wounds he received would have sufficed for his death, and his wife was wounded once.
And when he was dead the traitor Filippo thrust his hand into the breast of the noble Lord through a wound he had in his breast, and, as men say, dragged out the heart of him and bit it with his teeth, even as if he had been aforetime his deadly enemy, and had of his Lordship received some great hurt. Afterwards they dragged him down the stairs, as if he had been a mere hind and a base fellow, and thrust him out into the street naked as his mother bore him
Astorre’s father Guido and his brother Gismondo were also killed, along with Semonetto Baglioni. Other intended victims escaped, most importantly Giovan Paolo Baglioni, who soon returned and overthrew the conspirators. Matarazzo later describes Guido, Astorre and Gismondo being carried to burial on bare biers with little ceremony, a final humiliation inflicted by their enemies.
The episode became remembered as the Nozze Rosse, or “Red Wedding.” In this case, the comparison is particularly apt: the conspirators explicitly chose Astorre’s wedding because it brought nearly all their enemies together in one place, and their original intention was to kill them while they were still at the marriage feast.
14. The Stockholm Bloodbath — Sweden, 1520
In November 1520, Christian II of Denmark was crowned King of Sweden after years of conflict between supporters of the Kalmar Union and those of the Swedish regent Sten Sture the Younger. Christian had promised an amnesty to his former enemies, and his coronation in Stockholm on 4 November was followed by several days of festivities at Tre Kronor Castle. The celebrations were also supposed to represent a reconciliation after the bitter struggle for control of Sweden.
On 7 November, however, the castle gates were closed. Archbishop Gustav Trolle appeared before the king and demanded compensation for the treatment he and the Church had suffered at the hands of Sten Sture and his supporters. The problem for Christian was that many of the people involved were protected by his amnesty. The solution was to treat their actions against Trolle and the Church as heresy, an offence for which the earlier promises of forgiveness could be circumvented.
The executions began the following day in Stockholm’s Stortorget. Two bishops were among the first victims, followed by members of the Swedish council, noblemen, mayors and other prominent citizens. The Svenskt Biografiskt Lexikon gives a total of 82 people executed, while the Swedish History Museum describes the number as nearly 100. The victims were publicly beheaded, turning what had begun as a royal coronation and reconciliation celebration into the Stockholm Bloodbath.
The resemblance to the Red Wedding comes less from the executions themselves than from what preceded them. Christian’s defeated opponents had been promised reconciliation and gathered in Stockholm for his coronation festivities; only days later, many of those same political enemies were dead.
15. The St Bartholomew’s Day Massacre — France, 1572
The most famous example on this list comes just beyond the traditional end of the Middle Ages. On 18 August 1572, the Protestant Henry of Navarre, the future Henry IV of France, married Marguerite de Valois, the Catholic sister of King Charles IX. The marriage was intended to help reconcile France’s Catholics and Huguenots after years of religious warfare. It also brought many of the most important Huguenot nobles to overwhelmingly Catholic Paris, where the wedding was followed by several days of festivities.
Four days after the wedding, an assassin shot and wounded one of the leading Huguenots, Admiral Gaspard de Coligny. Tensions rapidly escalated, and during the night of 23–24 August the decision was made to eliminate Coligny and other prominent Huguenots. Coligny was murdered in his lodgings, while Protestant nobles were killed at the Louvre and elsewhere in Paris. What began as a targeted attack soon developed into a much wider massacre.
Marguerite herself later recalled how the violence reached her bedroom on the morning of 24 August:
As soon as I beheld it was broad day, I apprehended all the danger my sister had spoken of was over; and being inclined to sleep, I bade my nurse make the door fast, and I applied myself to take some repose. In about an hour I was awakened by a violent noise at the door, made with both hands and feet, and a voice calling out, ‘Navarre! Navarre!’ My nurse, supposing the King my husband to be at the door, hastened to open it, when a gentleman, named M. de Teian, ran in, and threw himself immediately upon my bed. He had received a wound in his arm from a sword, and another by a pike, and was then pursued by four archers, who followed him into the bedchamber. Perceiving these last, I jumped out of bed, and the poor gentleman after me, holding me fast by the waist. I did not then know him; neither was I sure that he came to do me no harm, or whether the archers were in pursuit of him or me. In this situation I screamed aloud, and he cried out likewise, for our fright was mutual.
The captain of the guard intervened and drove away the attackers, while Marguerite secured the wounded man’s life and had his injuries treated. She recalled that she had to change her shift because it was covered in his blood. As she made her way through the Louvre, she encountered still more violence, including another man who was struck with a pike and fell dead at her feet.
The killing continued in Paris for several days and subsequently spread to other French cities. Estimates of the number killed vary enormously, but thousands of Huguenots died. Henry of Navarre survived, although he was compelled to convert to Catholicism and remained effectively a prisoner at the French court before eventually escaping in 1576.
The St Bartholomew’s Day Massacre did not actually take place at the wedding feast—the killing began six days after the marriage. Nevertheless, the connection between the two events was important. A marriage intended to promote reconciliation had brought many prominent Huguenots together in Paris, only for celebrations of peace to be followed by one of the most infamous massacres in French history.
These episodes reveal why the Red Wedding feels so disturbingly plausible. Medieval politics depended heavily on personal meetings, hospitality and public displays of reconciliation, making weddings, banquets and other celebrations ideal opportunities to bring rivals together in one place. Most such gatherings ended peacefully, but when the rules of hospitality were deliberately broken, the resulting betrayals could become notorious for generations. From royal feasts to wedding celebrations, the promise of friendship could sometimes provide the perfect setting for murder.
You can read George R. R. Martin’s fictional version of the Red Wedding in A Storm of Swords, the third novel in his A Song of Ice and Fire series.
Top Image: Bern, Burgerbibliothek, Mss.h.h.I.16, p. 62 – Diebold Schilling, Spiezer Chronik
http://www.e-codices.ch/en/bbb/Mss-hh-I0016/62
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