History of the Crusades

the Crusades Episode 120 the Crusade against the Cathars, the Siege of Carcasson.

Hello again. Last week we saw the on. the beautiful town of Carcasson.

We left last week's episode on Saturday the 1st of August 1209

with the bulk of the Crusader army arriving at Carcasson and surrounding it.

Now, it had taken the main body of the Army quite some time to make the 60-mile journey to their destination.

You might recall that an advanced team of knights arrived at Carcasson on Tuesday the 28th of July, but it wasn't

until the following weekend that the rest of the Army filed in. This was an army which wasn't in a hurry. Their victory at

Bezier had been absolute and they certainly didn't feel under any sort of threat.

They could take their time along the road, pausing to ransack the abandoned towns they found on the Via Demetia, helping themselves to supplies

and plunder, and wandering along to Carcasson at whatever pace they pleased.

Their relaxed and confident attitude continued when they finally arrived at the city. They spent most of Saturday setting up camp and making themselves

as comfortable as possible and well the following day was Sunday the day of rest so they took the day off.

Finally on Monday the 3rd of August they turned their attention towards the job at hand, attacking the city of Carcasson.

Their first target was entirely expected, the non-fortified suburb of St Vincent, which lay on flat land adjacent to the river.

The defenders had predicted this move and all of its inhabitants had already been

transferred to the safety of the old city. Now although some Vincent was unfortified, it wasn't wholly unprotected. It was

surrounded by deep ditches. The first person across these ditches was, wait for it, Simon de Monfau.

Described by Peter the Monk in his Historia Albigensus as Simon the noble count of Monfor.

Simon threw himself enthusiastically

there was a musical accompaniment to this assault, which proved so popular that it was used repeatedly

throughout the rest of the military campaign.

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