Castle of Montségur

The castle of Montségur is described as Château cathare. Indeed, this castle was in fact established with the flush site of the old village strengthened which constituted, to the seat of 1244, the place of resistance of the Cathare S and of the Faydit S. the architectural dimensions show that the current castle was designed on the basis of English cane which was introduced only later on what proves that this one was partially rebuilt by the family of the new Lord of the places, the Marshal of the Faith Guy II of Lévis after rendering cathare of 1244.

Geography

Located on the commune of Montségur in the Department of Ariège and the area the Midday-Pyrenees.

The castle is located on the culminating point of the Montagne which overhangs the village, at 1.207 meters of Altitude.

History

The castle on the current site knew three major times during which the fortress will change little by little.

A first fortress was set up at the top of the mountain (also called pog ) which one does not know few things if it is not that it was in ruins in the neighborhoods of 1204, date on which the village strengthened cathare was built under the direction of Raymond de Péreille. It is the strengthened village or castrum to which the archeologists gave the name of Montségur II .

The fortress cathare

The defense force of this fortress was different from that which one currently knows. The castrum in him even included/understood the strengthened residence of the lord of the places, the castellum (which will be undoubtedly restored by the Maison of Lévis to give the current fortress) and the village cathare of the time surrounded by a strengthened enclosure. Side of the current road, drew up three walls of defense of which the first was at the level of the current counter for the paying visit of the castle. On the other side of the pog, with approximately 800 meters, was a tower of guet (to the Rock known as of " Tour") overhanging a cliff of 80 meters. The entry of Castrum which gives on this lathe of guet was defended by a Barbacane. Inside the enclosure of the fortress drew up a village of which there remain only some terraces in the North-West of the current castle. On these last, one finds there the foundations of several dwellings, the staircases to communicate between the terraces, a cistern and a silo.

Montségur will shelter an important community cathare. In 1215, the council of Lateran quotes the fortress as being a reference mark of heretics. In 1229, the role of Montségur as shelters for the Church cathare is reaffirmed in the treated of Meaux-Paris. Starting from 1232, this role does not cease being reinforced. In parallel, the castle will also accommodate the knights faydit S who were dispossessed of their grounds by the treaty of 1229. In the number of the latter appears Pierre-Roger de Mirepoix, cousin of Raymond de Péreille who will be the military Master of Montségur.

The seat of the castrum

In first half of the 13th century, the fortress will not undergo less than four seats whose only one success will be crowned:

Guy de Montfort, brother of Simon IV of Montfort will make a first attempt in 1212,
Simon IV of Montfort will direct the second in 1213,
In July 1241, Raymond VII of Toulouse on the order of Louis IX will begin a seat which it will raise without same giving an attack,
the last will be the work of Hugues d' Arcis, seneshal of Carcassonne.

This one will be started by the massacre of some inquisiteurs makes in 1242 with Avignonet by an about sixty men resulting from the garrison from Montségur. The seneshal of Carcassonne and the archbishop of Narbonne (Pierre Amiel) were charged to besiege the fortress, on the order of Blanche of Castille and Louis IX. In May 1243, the crusaders, with the number of approximately 6.000 men, surround Montségur.

In fact, the balance of the forces perdure until Christmas 1243 where a handle " of alpinistes" arrives, following a daring climbing carried out of night, to make itself main of the tower of guet. As from this moment, a Trébuchet is conveyed and assembled which will bombard without slackening the position of besieged as the many balls testify some to cut stone found on the site. Approximately a month later, perhaps following a local treason, the weephole falls to the hands from the attackers.

A last attack launched in February will be pushed back but will leave besieged very weakened.

The rendering of the fortified town

March 1st 1244, Pierre-Roger de Mirepoix is seen constrained to negotiate the rendering of the fortified town. The terms will be the following:

the life of the soldiers and laic will be saved,
the perfect ones who disavow their faith will be saved,
a 15 days truce is granted for the cathares which want to prepare and receive the last sacraments.

March 16th, the fortress opens again. All the cathares which had not abjured their faith perished on the Bûcher which absorbs thus a little more than 200 torture victims (the number varies slightly according to the sources) of which the woman, the girl and the mother-in-law of Raymond de Péreille. The tradition wants that to rough-hew it is assembled to 200 m of the castrum in the " Prat dels Cremats" (fields of the flarings) where a stele was set up by contemporary Société of the memory and the studies cathares. On this last figure the inscription: " Pure Als cathars, als martirs LED amor crestian. March 16th, 1244 ". It would seem that the real place of roughing-hew is located on the hill above the carpark on the right of the collar while going on Montferrier.
According to Yves Dossat, to rough-hew it was set up in Bram, in the canton of Fanjeaux.

Montségur under the reign of the family of Lévis

After the catch of the castle in 1244, the possession of the pog returns to Guy II of Lévis, Maréchal of the Faith, official lord of Mirepoix since the treated of 1229. The remainders of the village cathare were shaven as well as the external strengthened enclosure. The castellum was restored and refitted for there poster a garrison of about thirty men which will remain present until the Traité of the Pyrenees at the 17th century. Certain documents mention the castle as being " défensable" in 1510. Then, with the wire of the decades, the castle will end up being abandoned

Rehabilitation of the castle

The castle was classified historic building in 1875 and the pog on which it is located joined this classification in 1883. Since, the site did not cease igniting imaginations at such a point that much did not hesitate to excavate the pog with personal capacity for the reasons which we will see low. Paradoxically, restoration the campaign of the castle begun in 1947 slowed down these degradations and erased in same time certain archaeological indices. This restoration justified a speleological prospection of the mountain, carried out by the speleological Société of Ariège . The latter ends, in 1964 with the exhumation of a burial in the Aven of the precision balance . In 1968, the GRAM (Archaeological Group of Search for Montségur and Environs) is founded. This last already led several excavation campaigns on the site.

Myths around Montségur

One owes with the ariègois Napoleon Peyrat, about 1870, the enthusiastic redécouverte of Montségur; and its feather inspired, the romantic atmosphere which since then lives the place. So much so that it is still difficult with a certain public to today admit that the temple of Paraclet is only one small French castle of the 14th century.

The solar phenomenon of Montségur

Each year, to the winter solstice, the first sun ray at the horizon crosses the castle in its length and, to the summer solstice, it crosses the four archères of the keep to the North-West with a millimetre-length precision. There certain people see there a bond between the solar worship and the religion of the cathares.

The treasure of the church cathare

Montségur is supposed to have sheltered the rich person treasure of the church cathare. Of this supposed Trésor we know only few things. Two facts feed the assumptions around this treasure. The first, is the horse escape of the perfect Mathieu and the Bonnet deacon around Christmas 1243 carrying with them " Gold and money and a negligible quantity of monnaie". It is thought that this treasure arrived in Italy to Crémone, place of Italy where another important community cathare lived. This assumption is reinforced by the epistolary correspondences proven between the two communities.

A second treasure would have been saved during the truce of March 1244 since it is made state of four individuals fleeing of Montségur with a loading. The historians conjecture that this treasure joined together the many texts heretics preserved by the Perfect ones in the fortress.

The Pyrenean graal

Montségur was regarded as being the castle of the Graal. The graal would have been one of the parts of the treasure of the church cathare: the cut in which Joseph d' Arimathie would have collected the blood of Christ on the Golgotha mount or emerald fallen from the crown of Lucifer during the fall of the Angels. The German Otto Rahn was the dedicated craftsman of this myth which a scholar of Ussat-the-Baths had inspired to him, Antonin Gadal.

Otto Rahn had studied the history of the cathares and was impassioned by this Languedoc rich in “legends”. In 1932, it had settled in the thermal small station of Ussat-the-Baths to the hotel the Chestnut trees of which it had taken management. Thanks to the poetic theories of Antonin Gadal, he wrote the “Crusade against Graal” which took an active part, after the first test on Montségur of Napoleon Peyrat, with the renewed interest for Occitanie.

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