It would be pretentious to write only about medieval history within the Minervois. The contents of the file would be so ridiculously short on the one hand and the reader would gain little insight on the other. Except perhaps to say to himself that the Minervois is so inconspicuous as to merit no attention. And that would be a completely false premise. However, to inform the reader a little on what was happening in the Minervois, I am going to describe the general state of things as they existed throughout this area of which the Minervois is a part ; a very special part for many of us.

When the Wisigoths arrived at Narbonne in 413 AD, the Romans had already been present in the Midi of Gaulle for over five centuries. Although the Celts and Iberians were still in the majority, it seems from 445 AD records of a priest Salvien at Marseilles, that the Wisigoths were welcomed as liberators from the tyranny of Rome. The Wisigoths persisted and made their capital at Toulouse and finally obtained Narbonne from the Roman governor, Agrippinus, in 462.

While the Wisigoths were establishing their presence from the Atlantic to the Alps, the territory that they called 'Septimanie', the Francs were invading from the north and soon came to dispute the Midi with the Wisigoths. The Francs took the western half of the Wisigoths' province in 507 from Aquitaine through Toulouse to the Lauragais and knocked on the door of Carcassonne. In 585, the Wisigoths repulsed the Francs from the Cabardes and the Minervois stayed another hundred years under Wisigoth domination. The region was now referred to by the Francs as 'Gothie'.

The Arab invasion was of greater consequence for this area. Narbonne was captured by the Arabs in 719 and remained under their control until recaptured by Pépin le Bref in 759. No detailed accounts are available of the forty years of Arab occupation but the earlier view that the Sarazens devastated the land has had to be reconsidered. When the Carolingians retook this area from the Arabs, it was not a de-populated region and the Goths were still present. If the results of the Arab occupation of Spain are taken into acocunt, the effects on the Minervois should have been beneficial.