Siege of Carcassonne ends with a Cathar surrender in 1209
After 15 days, the Siege of Carcassonne came to an end with the Cathar stronghold surrendered to Crusader forces on August 15, 1209.
[The Cathar] movement, which emerged in Europe in the 12th century, rejected the Roman Church, which it accused of not respecting the ideals of Christ. In the south of France, four churches adopted this doctrine: Albi, Val d’Aran, Toulouse… and Carcassonne.
In 1209, Pope Innocent III launched a crusade against these heretical “Albigensians”, with the support of King Louis VIII. The besieged city of Carcassonne fell after a 15-day siege on August 15, 1209. Raimond Trencavel was defeated by Simon de Montfort, military leader of the expedition, who took the town. Seventeen years later, in 1226, Carcassonne became part of the French royal domain. The crusade came to an end in 1229.
https://www.remparts-carcassonne.fr/en/discover/history-of-the-monument
Carcassonne
Issued by France in 1938 for their French Life and Landmarks series
Designer: Roger Chapelain-Midy
Engraver: Jules Piel
France reissued the set in 2018 for their Treasures of Philately series. I have a particular fondness for this stamp because it was one of the first older French stamps I acquired in my teens. The details led me to the library so I could look up Carcassonne’s history. Stamps are wonderful. Mix them with a bit of history and you have a blissful afternoon of fun.
Carcassone is now a listed UNESCO World Heritage site.
Since the pre-Roman period, fortifications have been erected on the hill where Carcassonne is located today. In its present form, it is an outstanding example of a fortified medieval city with an enormous defensive system developed mainly in the 13th century. This system consists of two enclosures separated by barriers surrounding the houses, the streets and the superb Gothic cathedral, as well as the castle and the main buildings associated with it.
The inner ramparts comprise twenty-six circular towers and largely overlap the clearly visible Roman defenses for two-thirds of their length. The outer ramparts have nineteen round towers, three of which are barbicans. The enclosure is surrounded by moats and the two main entrances to the fortified city, the Porte Narbonnaise and the Porte de l’Aude, are particularly elaborate. The 12th century count’s castle and the main buildings associated with it were built on the western part of the Roman ramparts. The basilica dedicated to Saints Nazaire and Celse has no flying buttresses, stability being ensured by the internal vaulted structure.
https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/345