The cathar period lasted more or less a hundred years, from about 1165 – 1271, in the period of the violence of the Dark Ages.
A turbulent and oppressive period of crusades and battles for power, the cathar history is one of a much abused religion which dared to challenge the power of the catholic church and proposed a more ‘basic’ form of Christianity (see cathars for details).
The Church deemed that the religion should be dealt with using very severe repression – principally a crusade against the cathars with the sole goal of destroying them.
This period of the middle ages has left its mark on southern France, above all in the castles around Carcassonne and Languedoc-Roussillon that are now referred to collectively as the Cathar castles…
Aude Cathar Country 