- INTRODUCTION -
THE HERETIC CATHAR FAITH AND THE SIEGE
OF FORTRESS MONTSEGUR MARCH 1244
The ruins of the Montsegur are perched at a precarious
3000 foot (1,207 m.) altitude in the south of France near the Pyrenees
Mountains. Located in the heart of France's Languedoc-Midi-Pyrenees
regions, 80 km south-west of Carcassonne, Montsegur dominates a rock
formation known as a pog--a term derived from the local Occitan
dialect--pueg or puog: peak, hill, mountain.
In 1243-1244--the Cathars--a mysterious heretical sect were besieged at Montsegur
thousand Royal Catholic French troops. In March of 1244,
the castle finally surrendered and
the Cathar defenders were burned en masse in a bonfire at the foot of the
In the days prior to the fall of the fortress,
several Cathars allegedly slipped through the French lines carrying away a
mysterious "treasure" with them. While the nature and fate of this
treasure has never been identified there has been much speculation as to
what it might have consisted of: from the treasury of the Cathar Church
books or even the actual Holy Grail.
Montsegur is often named as a
candidate for the Holy Grail castle--and indeed there are linguistic similarities in the
Grail romance written by Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival (c.
1200-1210). In Parzival the grail castle is called Monsalvat,
similar to Montsegur and meaning the same thing: "safe mountain,
secure mountain." The name of Raymond Pereille, the historic seigneur of
Montsegur has slight simularities to protagonist of Eschenbach's epic, the
knight Parzival. In Jüngerer Titurel (1272) by Albrecht von Scharfenberg,
another Grail epic, the first king of the Holy Grail is named
Myths and legends apart, the history of Montsegur is in fact
both dramatic and mysterious. The siege was an epic event of heroism and
zealotry; a Masada of the Cathar faith.