Carcassonne, a hilltop town in southern France’s Languedoc area is famous for its medieval citadel, La Cité, with numerous watchtowers and double-walled fortifications.
Carcassonne became famous for its role in the Albigensian Crusades when the city was a stronghold of Occitan Cathars, however the rich history of the site extends to centuries and various rulers.
The site was already fortified by the Romans in 100 BCE.
It was subsequently conquered by various powers throughout history, including the Visigoths who took it from the Romans and successfully foiled attacks by the Frankish King Clovis in turn. The Umayyad Muslims of al-Andalus took it in 725 CE but King Pepin the Short drove them away a few years later.
In 1067, Carcassonne became the property of Raimond-Bernard Trencavel, viscount of Albi and Nîmes. In the following centuries, the Trencavel family allied in succession with either the counts of Barcelona or of Toulouse. They built the Château Comtal and the Basilica of Saints Nazarius and Celsus.
In August 1209, during the Albigensian Crusade, the army of the Papal Legate, Abbot Arnaud Amalric, forced its citizens to surrender. Viscount Raymond-Roger de Trencavel was imprisoned whilst negotiating his city's surrender and died in mysterious circumstances three months later in his own dungeon. The people of Carcassonne were expelled from their city. The Crusade was aimed against the Cathars, a gnostic revival movement in what is today southern France, but in truth carried more complex agendas, such as economic and territorial. In the background were the Catholic Church's frustrations about a coexistence between Jews, Catholics and Cathars which diminished the Church's influence in the region, as Jews for example, could reach prominent positions.
In 1240, Trencavel's son tried to reconquer his old domain but he was not successful. The city submitted to the rule of the kingdom of France in 1247. Carcassonne became a border fortress between France and the Crown of Aragon under the Treaty of Corbeil (1258). King Louis IX and his successor Philip III expanded the town and its ramparts. At the time the fortress was still considered impregnable. During the Hundred Years' War, Edward the Black Prince failed to take the city in 1355, although his troops destroyed the Lower Town.
In 1659, the Treaty of the Pyrenees transferred the border province of Roussillon to France, and Carcassonne's military significance was reduced. Its fortifications were abandoned and the city mainly became an economic centre that concentrated on the woollen textile industry. It remained so until the Ottoman market collapsed at the end of the eighteenth century, thereafter reverting to a country town.