History of the Crusades

the Crusades Episode 151, the crusade against the Cathars, Narn 1, 1214.

Hello again. Now just before we get on to this week's episode I have a

pronunciation correction to make. Last week we were introduced to the roaming dispossessed nobleman whose name I mispronounced as Roitier.

Luckily, Twitter came to the rescue and now I can advise that the proper pronunciation is

rootier because of course they are on route constantly on route they are men of the

road rootier it all makes so much sense now. So thank you to Twitter follower Paul

Apostate for the correction. It's always good to be able to get things right.

Okay let's launch into this week's episode. Last week we saw things take a turn for the worse for Simon de Monfort

he must have wondered where his decisive victory at Muray had left him.

While it was true that he had managed to wipe out the Army of Aragon, a goodly portion of the Southern French cavalry and the

Toulousin militia at Muray, the rebellion against the Northern French Crusaders continues unabated.

The role played by the Southern French and Aragonese armies seems to have been replaced

by roaming bands of angry men. Men from Aragon and the county of

Barcelona, eager to avenge the death of King Peter II of Aragon, and the Ruutier from southern France. Men dispossessed by the Crusaders who now landless and

homeless and with nothing to lose spend their their days in groups, roaming the countryside,

attacking any northern Frenchmen they come across, and generally making life as

difficult as possible for Simon and his Crusaders.

When we left last week's episode, it was early in the year 1214, and Simon de Monfor was facing a couple of major problems.

The first problem was in the form of the city of Narbonne which had declared itself to be part of the rebellion.

At the same time as Narbon was rising in defiance of the Crusaders, King John and the English Army looked to be menacing his territory in the Arginay.

Now, if you look at a map of southern France, you can see that these two events are taking place at the opposite

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