Editing Narbonne (section)

===Narbonne loses its river and port===
[[File:Narbonn.JPG|thumb|right|In the old town]]
[[File:Narbonne cassini old.JPG|thumb|Narbonne {{Circa|1780}}]]

Narbonne itself fell into a slow decline in the 14th century, for a variety of reasons. One was due to a change in the course of the river [[Aude (river)|Aude]], which caused increased silting of the navigational access. The river, known as the Atax in ancient times, had always had two main courses which split close to Salelles; one fork going south through Narbonne and then to the sea close to the Clappe Massif, the other heading east to the etang at Vendres close to the current mouth of the river well to the east of the city. The Romans had improved the navigability of the river by building a dam near Salelles and also by canalising the river as it passed through its marshy delta to the sea (then as now the canal was known as the Robine.) A major flood in 1320 swept the dam away. The Aude river had a long history of overflowing its banks. When it was a bustling port, the distance from the coast was approximately {{convert|5|to|10|km|0|abbr=on}}, but at that time the access to the sea was deep enough only when the river was in full spate which made communication between port and city unreliable.<ref>''Mediterranean Beaches and Bluffs: A Bicycle Your France E-guide'' by Walter Judson Moore, 2015</ref> However, goods could easily be transported by land and in shallow barges from the ports (there were several: a main port and forward ports for larger vessels; indeed the navigability from the sea into the ''étang'' and then into the river had been a perennial problem)

The changes to the long seashore which resulted from the silting up of the series of ''graus'' or openings which were interspersed between the islands which made up the shoreline (St. Martin; St. Lucie) had a more serious impact than the change in course of the river. Other causes of decline were the plague and the raid of [[Edward, the Black Prince]], which caused much devastation. The growth of other ports was also a factor.