built the Château Comtal and the Basilica of Saint-Nazaire. In 1096, Pope Urban II blessed the foundation stones of the new cathedral, a Catholic bastion against the Cathars.
Carcassonne became famous in its role in the Albigensian Crusades, when the city was a stronghold of Occitan Cathars. In August 1209 the crusading army of Simon de Montfort forced its citizens to surrender. Raymond-Roger de Trencavel was imprisoned whilst negotiating his city's surrender, held in his own dungeon and allowed to die. Montfort was appointed the new viscount. He added to the fortifications. Carcassonne became a border citadel between France and the kingdom of Aragon (Spain).
In 1240, Trencavel's son tried to reconquer his old domain but in vain. The city submitted to the rule of the kingdom of France in 1247, and King Louis IXfounded the new part of the town across the river. He and his successor Philip III built the outer ramparts. Contemporary opinion still considered the fortress impregnable. During the Hundred Years' War, Edward the Black Prince failed to take the city in 1355, although his troops destroyed the Lower Town.
In 1659, the Treaty of the Pyrenees transferred the border province of Roussillon to France, and Carcassonne's military significance was reduced. Fortifications were abandoned, and the city became mainly an economic centre that concentrated on the woollen textile industry, for which a 1723 source quoted by Fernand Braudel found it "the manufacturing centre of Languedoc"
