Ruins of the Peyrepertuse castle. As you can see, the castle was ideally tied to the terrain, so it was very difficult to get close to its walls. And the entrance to it was protected by several walls, one after another!
View of the mountain and Montsegur castle. The first thought is how people got there, and most importantly, how did they build this castle there? After all, it's hard to look from below - the hat falls off!
Yes, but what helped the Qatar to hold out for so long against the army of the Crusaders, who had an abundance of throwing machines and various projectiles for them? Their faith and fortitude? Of course, both help in many ways, but Carcassonne gave up because of the lack of water, although at that time it was a first-class fortress. No, the Cathars in France were helped by their castles, built in such inaccessible places that it was extremely difficult to take them by storm or siege. About Carcassonne, which is today the largest fortified citadel in Western Europe, with 52 towers and three whole rings of defensive fortifications with a total length of more than 3 km, there has already been a long article on the pages of TOPWAR, so there is no point in repeating it. But about many other Cathar castles, the story will now be continued.
Puilorans Castle.
Not far from Carcassonne is the Peyrepertuse Castle, and like the neighboring castles of Pueilorans, Keribus, Aguilar and Thermes, it was one of the Cathar outposts that were located south of Carcassonne. And it was not just a castle, but a small fortified city at the intersection of the Corbières and Fenuyed mountains - with the streets, the Cathedral of St. Mary (XII-XIII centuries) and fortifications 300 m long and 60 m wide - in fact, a kind of Small Carcassonne. The fortress wall, castle and donjon of Saint-Jordi were built by order of Louis IX, who wished to have an impregnable fortress here. But the old castle located below was just built even before the crusade against heretics and belonged to Guillaume de Peyrepertuse - the most influential lord in these parts. Guillaume fought with the royal troops for twenty years and submitted to the king only after the suppression of the uprising of 1240 - the last attempt of the Count of Trancavel to reconquer Carcassonne.
Just below the fortified village, on a spur between the hollows of two rivers, only half a day's walk from Carcassonne in the southeast direction, rise the ruins of the castle of the lords of Sessac. Moreover, the ties between them were long-standing and strong, since Roger II Trancavel (died in 1194) chose Senor de Sessac as guardian for his nine-year-old son Raymond Roger, the future new Viscount of Carcassonne.
In the courtyard of the Sessak castle.
At the end of the 12th century, there were many heretics of both sexes in Sessak: the "perfect" and deacons received the "believers" in their homes and in the castle itself.
Donjon and several vaulted halls that have survived to our time date from the era when the castle was captured by Simon de Montfort, who did not meet any resistance here. Señor Sessak himself "went to the partisans" and therefore was considered an exile. Before the establishment of peace, the fortress repeatedly passed from hand to hand. In the 13th century, it was restored by the French, and in the 16th century it was also rebuilt.
Donjon is one of the strongholds of the lords of the Cabaret.
The Cathars and four castles of the Cabaret seniors were used - the Cabaret castle itself, the Surdespin castle (or Flordespin), the Curtine castle and the Tour Regine - real eagle nests on the tops of steep mountains surrounded by gorges and located in a close triangle within line of sight from each other. They are also called Lastour castles, since they are located on the territory of the commune of the same name. They are located just two to three hours of walking north of Carcassonne. The mountainous landscape is harsh, but these lands are rich in deposits of iron, copper, silver and gold, which brought wealth to the lords of the Cabaret. At the end of the 12th century, these possessions belonged to the brothers Pierre-Roger and Jourdain de Cabaret, major vassals of the Viscount of Carcassonne. They provided shelter for heretics and patronized their churches, and hosted troubadours - singers of courtly love, which they themselves indulged in, and in such a way that it left a noticeable mark on their family chronicles.
The next castle of the lords is Cabaret. The one in the previous photo is visible in the distance. And it becomes quite clear that it was simply impossible to besiege all four such castles at once, and taking them in turn would only waste time!
Simon de Montfort did not succeed in capturing Cabaret. In 1209, hostilities did not last long here: it took too many people to siege all the castles at the same time, and too much time to seize them one by one, since the use of siege machines against castles located on the summits with a steep climb was excluded. Meanwhile, the garrison, which included many "exiled" lords, set up an ambush, attacked a column of crusaders of fifty spearmen and a hundred infantrymen and took hostage Señor Pierre de Marly, a comrade-in-arms of de Montfort himself, who at that time were just these three castles and besieged.
Here they are - all the castles of the lords of Cabaret, one after another …
At the end of 1210, several lords leave Cabaret and surrender to the Crusaders. The castle of Minerva was surrendered, then the castle of Thermes. Pierre-Roger realized that, in the end, he could not resist either, and hastened to save all the "perfect" and "believers" who were with him, after which in 1211 he surrendered to his own captive Pierre de Marly, stipulating that all those who surrender will be spared their lives.
Modern model of Therme castle as it was in 1210.
Ten years later, his son Pierre-Roger the Younger conquered all three of these castles and his father's lands, after which more than thirty rebel lords gathered in the Cabaret, which turned it into one of the centers of Cathar resistance, which ended only in 1229, when Louis IX forced the lords who patronized them to conclude peace with him. But even before that, all the heretics, including their bishop, were evacuated and sheltered in safe places. The last uprising took place in August 1240, when Raymond Trancavel again led his army to Carcassonne. The seigneurs de Cabaret and their mother, the noble lady Orbri, then managed to regain all these castles, but in October all this was lost again, and this time for good.
When Simon de Montfort captured the region of Minervois in the spring of 1210, he failed to capture two castles: Minerve and Vantage. The castle of Minerva became a hiding place for his lord Guillaume de Minerva and several other lords who were expelled from their lands. In mid-June, Montfort approached the castle with a large army. The village and the castle were located on a rocky spur of a limestone plateau, where the gorges of two mountain streams converged, which dry up almost completely in summer. A narrow passage on the plateau was blocked off by a castle, the village was surrounded by steep ravines, and the walls and towers of the castle were a continuation of this natural defense, so it was simply impossible to send troops to an assault under these conditions. Therefore, Montfort chose to surround the castle, installing a catapult at each position, and the most powerful of them, which even had a proper name - Malvoisin, Montfort placed in his camp.
A non-stop bombardment of the castle began, walls and roofs collapsed, stone cannonballs killed people, and the passage to the only well with water was destroyed. On the night of June 27, several volunteers managed to take by surprise and destroy the gun crew at Malvoisin, but they, in turn, were caught on the spot, and did not have time to set it on fire. The heat was intense, and there was no way to bury the many dead, which greatly facilitated the task of the crusaders. In the seventh week of the siege, Guillaume de Minerve surrendered, having made the condition that all the defeated would be spared. The crusaders entered the fortress, occupied the Romanesque church (it has survived to this day) and invited the Cathars to renounce their faith. One hundred and forty "perfect" men and women refused and went to the fire themselves. The rest of the residents went to reconciliation with the Catholic Church. When Minerva was taken, he surrendered to Vantage. Later, the fortress was destroyed, and only ruins remained from it, including the octahedral tower "La Candela", which resembles in its stonework the Narbonne Gate in Carcassonne. Only a few stones, left here and there, remind today of the walls of the once mighty castle of the lords of Minerva.
It was a bit cramped in the Munsegur castle, to be sure!
Known to almost everyone who has heard at least a little about the Cathars, the castle of Montsegur was built in Ariege on the top of a steep and lonely cliff by Raymond de Perey, the son of the heretics Guillaume-Roger de Mirpois and his wife Furniera de Perey. This was done at the request of the "perfect" of the four Qatari dioceses of Languedoc, who gathered in 1206 in Mirpua. They believed that if the information about the impending persecutions against them was confirmed, then Montsegur (which means "reliable mountain") would become a reliable refuge for them. Raymond de Perey set to work and built a castle on the steepest part of the cliff and a village next to it. From the outbreak of the war in 1209 until the siege in 1243, Montsegur served as a refuge for the local Cathars as the Crusaders approached the area. In 1232, the Toulouse bishop of the Cathars, Guilaber de Castres, arrived in Montsegur with two assistants and "perfect" - only about thirty high-ranking clergymen, accompanied by three knights. He asked Raymond de Pereya to agree to Monsegur becoming a “home and head” for his church, and he, having weighed all the pros and cons, took this step.
Donjon of Montsegur castle. Inside view.
Taking an experienced warrior and his cousin, and later his son-in-law Pierre-Roger de Mirpois, as assistants, he made a garrison of the castle of eleven "exiled" knights and sergeants, infantrymen, horsemen and riflemen, and organized its defense. In addition, he also provided everything necessary for the inhabitants of the village located next to him, the population of which numbered from 400 to 500 people. The supply of food and feed, the escort and protection of the "perfect" during their travels through the villages, the collection of land tax - all this required constant travel, so the garrison of Montsegur was constantly increasing, and its influence was growing; many sympathizers, artisans and merchants came to the castle, keeping in touch with the holy people, whose abode could be seen on the horizon from almost anywhere in the Languedoc.
The first and unsuccessful siege of the castle by the troops of the Count of Toulouse, who thus maintained the appearance of cooperation with the king, dates back to 1241. In 1242, Pierre-Roger, led by experienced warriors, raided Avignon, killed the priests and brothers-inquisitors gathered there, and devastated everything in his path. This served as the signal for another uprising in the Languedoc, which, however, was brutally suppressed. In 1243, all the rebels, except the Cathars of Montsegur, signed a peace treaty. The French decided to destroy this nest of heresy and laid siege to the castle in early June, but until mid-December, nothing special happened in its vicinity. Shortly before Christmas, two "perfect" secretly took the church treasury to the cave of Sabartes. Meanwhile, the royal troops still managed to reach the top, and throwing weapons were placed at the walls of the castle. It ended with the fact that on March 2 Pierre-Roger de Mirpois nevertheless surrendered the fortress, the soldiers and ordinary people left it, they were kept alive and free, but the "perfect" of both sexes, including their bishop Marty, were offered a choice - renounce faith or go to the stake. A few days later, around the 15th, the fortress was opened, and 257 heretics, men, women and even children, ascended the fire, surrounded by a palisade of spears. This place is called the Fields of the Burned to this day.
Legend says that in the days when the walls of Montsegur were intact, the Cathars kept the Holy Grail there. When Montsegur was in danger, and he was besieged by the armies of Darkness in order to return the Holy Grail to the diadem of the Prince of this World, from which he fell when the angels fell, at the most critical moment a dove descended from heaven, which with its beak smashed Montsegur into two parts. The Grail keepers threw him into the depths of the cleft. The mountain closed again and the Grail was saved. When the army of Darkness nevertheless entered the fortress, it was already too late. The enraged crusaders burned all the perfect ones near the rock, there is now the Pillar of the Burned. All of them died at the stake, except for four. When they saw that the Grail was saved, they went along underground passages into the bowels of the Earth and continue to perform their mysterious rituals there in underground temples. This is the story of Monsegur and the Grail that is still being told in the Pyrenees today.
After the surrender of Montsegur, the peak of Keribus, which rose to a height of 728 m, in the heart of the Hautes Corbières, remained the last impregnable refuge of heretics. There they could stop during their wanderings - some for a while, and some forever. The citadel was surrendered only in 1255, eleven years after the capture of Montsegur, most likely after the departure or death of the last "perfect", such as, for example, Benoit de Thermes, the chief bishop of Razes, about whom from 1229, when he received refuge in this castle, there was no news. Keribus is a rare type of keep with truncated edges; today a large Gothic hall is open to the public.
Keribus Castle.
Another castle similar to it - Puilorance, like Keribus, was built on a mountain with a height of 697 meters. At the end of the 10th century, he moved to the abbey of Saint-Michel-de-Cux. The French northerners did not succeed in capturing this fortress, in which the lords expelled from everywhere found shelter. But after the end of the war, it was abandoned. However, perhaps that is why its defensive structures have been so well preserved: the donjon of the XI-XII centuries. and jagged curtains with round towers on its sides seem to defy the times. The only way to get to the castle was via a ramp with partitions, and the steepness of the rock protected its walls from stone cores and possible digging under them.
In the castle of Carcassonne, you can still make films, which, by the way, is done there!
Puyvert Castle is located in the Kerkorb area. It was built in the 12th century on the shore of a lake (it disappeared in the 13th century) on a mound overlooking a nearby village. The open landscape here pleases the eye much more than the wild rocks on which most of the Qatari castles are located. And yet, this castle also belonged to the Cathars - the feudal Kongost family, linked by numerous marriage ties with noble families of heretics throughout the Languedoc. So Bernard de Congoste married Arpaix de Mirpois, sister of the lord of the castle of Montsegur, and cousin of his captain. In Puyvers, she surrounded herself with a retinue of enlightened people, poets and musicians, which was fashionable in that era in the Provencal regions and lived in full pleasure, without denying herself anything. Shortly before the crusade against the heretics, she felt unwell and asked to be taken to the "perfect", where she died, having received "consolation", in the presence of Guillaume's son and loved ones. Remaining faithful to the Qatari heresy, Bernard died at Montsegur in 1232, but Guillaume and his cousin Bernard de Congoste later, together with the Montsegurian garrison, participated in the devastating raid on Avignon. Both of them will defend these sacred places to the very end.
This castle itself, when Montfort approached it with his troops in the fall of 1210, held out for only three days, and after which it was taken and transferred to the French lord Lambert de Turi. At the end of the century, it became the property of the Bruyere family, thanks to which in the 15th century it was significantly expanded and re-enclosed by a magnificent fortress wall. The castle's square keep consists of three halls, one above the other. In the upper hall, you can see eight wonderful consoles with sculptural images of musicians and musical instruments, reminiscent of the times of Lady Arpaiks so far from our days and belonging to her retinue of “troubadours of love”.
One of the most unusual Qatari castles is the Ark castle, built for some reason on the plain. Its walls are not high, but there is an impressive donjon!
Here it is - the keep of Ark Castle!
Side tower of the keep of the castle of Ark. Inside view.
The Ark castle was also erected not in the mountains, but on the plain, and at present only its keep with four corner towers remains from it. The fortress wall that surrounded the castle is almost completely destroyed, but the elegant silhouette of the four-storey dungeon, currently covered with pale pink tiles, towers over the surroundings as before. Its internal structure also testifies to the great skill and ingenuity of the Languedoc masters of that distant time, who managed to create such strong and monumental structures that they resisted not only the cruelty and folly of people, but also successfully resisted the forces of nature for many centuries, and even the most unforgiving of time.
And as a memory of that time at the foot of Mount Montsegur there is still a cross on the "Field of the Burned"!
