The siege of Narbonne took place in France between 752 and 759, led by the Frankish king Pepin the Short against the Umayyad stronghold defended by an garrison of Arab and Berber Muslim troops who had invaded Septimania and occupied the Visigothic Kingdom and its Gallo-Roman inhabitants since 719.
[4] The region of Septimania was invaded by al-Samh ibn Malik al-Khawlani, wāli (governor-general) of al-Andalus,[5] in 719, and subsequently occupied by the Arab and Berber Muslim forces in 720.
[7] Arab and Berber Muslim forces, soundly based in Narbonne and easily resupplied by sea, struck in the 720s, conquering Carcassonne on the north-western fringes of Septimania (725) and penetrating eastwards as far as Autun (725).
[8][9] During the Early Middle Ages, an Andalusian garrison of Arab and Berber Muslim troops invaded the region of Septimania in 719 and deposed the local Visigothic Kingdom in 720.
[8] While his reasons for leading a military expedition south remain unclear, it seems that he wanted to seal his newly secured grip on Burgundy,[8] now threatened by Umayyad occupation of several cities lying in the lower Rhône, or maybe it provided the excuse he needed to intervene in this territory ruled by Visigothic and Roman law, far off from the Frankish centre in the north of Gaul.
[2] Yusuf ibn 'Abd al-Rahman al-Fihri, wali of al-Andalus, had to quash a rebellion in Zaragoza in 756, and immediately head south to fight Abd ar-Rahman I, who defeated him.
[12] After the Frankish conquest of Narbonne in 759, the Muslim Arabs and Berbers were defeated by the Christian Franks and expelled to their Andalusian heartland after 40 years of occupation, and the Carolingian king Pepin the Short came up reinforced.