Hosted by Haringey Counterfire Free.
In August 1303, the people of the southern French town of Carcassonne rose up in revolt. Their rebellion against King and Inquisition saw the prison stormed, many of the town elite driven out and their houses sacked, and the inquisitors humiliated. For eighteen months, Carcassonne was a town where the French royal writ did not run.
Reconstructed from the contemporary accounts, the revolt emerges as an important incident in medieval class struggle. It was also the apogee of the fight by the people of Languedoc against the northern French invaders of the Albigensian crusade and the persecutions they brought with them.
Combining political analysis with original research, this book reveals the hidden story of a significant medieval rebellion and its importance for our understanding of oppression and resistance today.
About the author: Elaine Graham-Leigh is an activist and writer of history, politics and fiction. She is the author of The Southern French Nobility and the Albigensian Crusade, (Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 2005), A Diet of Austerity: Class, Food and Climate Change, (London: Zero Books, 2015), Marx and the Climate Crisis, (London: Counterfire, 2020), The Caduca, (Canterbury: The Conrad Press, 2021) and Revolution in Carcassonne: The Story of a Fourteenth-Century Rebellion, (London: Whalebone Press, 2025). She is a founding member of Counterfire.
PGC cannot guarantee that all What's On information is 100% accurate. If in doubt, contact the organisers or visit their website using the More Details button.
