Carcassonne, upper city ramparts.
Photograph courtesy of Rebecca A.
Baltzer.
tury. During the 11th and 12th centuries, Carcassonne was at the center of the vast
domains controlled by the family of Trencavel. The city, twice lost and regained by the
viscounts, played a pivotal role in the struggles between the counts of Toulouse and
Barcelona.
The Albigensian Crusade of 1209 ended the dynasty of the Trencavels. Under Simon
de Montfort and, after 1226, the king of France, Carcassonne became the seat of a
sénéchaussée. In 1240, the final attempt of the young Raymond Trencavel to recover his
domains failed in the desperate siege of Carcassonne. Trencavel’s retreat left the bourg,
which had joined his rebellion, abandoned and destroyed. It remained depopulated until
1248, when Louis IX had it reconstructed on the left bank of the Aude. At the end of the
13th century, the bourg was again the center of agitation, led by Bernard Délicieux
against the Inquisition in the Midi. In 1305, fifteen burghers, including the consuls, were
hanged for attempted insurrection and treason against the king of France.
Although Carcassonne never achieved the importance of Béziers, Narbonne, or Nîmes,
its economic prosperity, particularly as a center of textile manufacture, reached its height
in the first half of the 14th century. After 1350, the city declined rapidly both in
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