Albigensian Crusade - Military Campaigns

Military Campaigns

The military campaigns of the Crusade can be divided into several periods: the first from 1209 to 1215 was a series of great successes for the crusaders in Languedoc. There was episodes of extreme violence like the killing of Béziers, faced the forces assembled by vassal lords of the Capetian mainly from Ile de France and the north of France, led by Simon de Montfort, against the nobility of Toulouse led by Count Raymond VI of Toulouse and the family Trencavel that, as allies and vassals of the king of Aragon Peter II the Catholic, invoked direct involvement in the conflict at the Aragonese monarch, who was defeated and killed in the course of Battle of Muret in 1213.

The captured lands, however, were largely lost between 1215 and 1225 in a series of revolts and military reverses. The death of Simon de Montfort at the site to Toulouse after the return of Count Raymond VII of Toulouse and the consolidation of Occitan resistance supported by the Count of Foix and Aragonese crown forces decided the military intervention of Louis VIII of France from 1226 with the support of Pope Honorius III.

The situation turned again following the intervention of the French king, Louis VIII, in 1226. He died in November of that year, but the struggle continued under King Louis IX and the area was reconquered by 1229; the leading nobles made peace, culminating in the Treaty of Meaux-Paris in 1229, which was agreed the integration of the territory Occitan in the French crown. After 1233, the Inquisition was central to crushing what remained of Catharism. Resistance and occasional revolts continued, but the days of Catharism were numbered. Military action ceased in 1255.