The Albigensian Crusade was not a single event, but a genocidal attack on the people of occitan which lasted over two hundred years. The excuse for the original invasion was to eliminate the Cathar “heresy” but it represented a thinly veiled theft of land.

The peoples of the south placed little reliance on material issues. This was a result of following or having sympathy for those who followed the Cathar faith. Initially they were poorly organised, but they recovered, fighting for fifty years to restore their lands and preserve their faith.

In this period they showed such resilience that the usurpers resorted to genocide, using the horrors of the inquisition and forced abduction and marriage of young women to destroy any remaining social stability.