Eight hundred years ago, the Cathars

The Cathars were a group of heretical Christians from all walks of society, high and low, who flourished in what is now the Languedoc in Southern France. Their subversive beliefs brought down on them the wrath of Popes and monarchs and provoked a brutal Crusade against them.

The final defeat of the Cathars

The final defeat was horrific, with mass burnings of men, women, and children in the village of Montaillou in the Pyrenees.