Montsegur

The Cathars were a Christian movement that rejected Catholic authority and materialism. The Church declared them heretics and launched a crusade. Montségur was their last stronghold. The siege ended in mass martyrdom. The tradition was extinguished; the memory persists.

The Cathars emerged in southern France in the twelfth century, preaching a dualist Christianity that saw the material world as evil. Their perfecti lived lives of radical simplicity; their believers (credentes) could live normal lives but hoped to receive the consolamentum before death.

The Catholic Church condemned them as heretics. In 1209, Pope Innocent III launched the Albigensian Crusade, beginning forty years of war that devastated southern France. By the 1240s, the crusade had largely succeeded. Montségur remained as the final significant Cathar refuge.

Raymond de Péreille had rebuilt the castle around 1204. From 1233, it served as the formal headquarters of the Cathar church, housing the bishop and several hundred believers. In 1242, a group from Montségur participated in an attack on Inquisition officials at Avignonet, killing eleven inquisitors. This precipitated the final siege.

The siege began in May 1243, led by Hughes des Arcis. Ten thousand men surrounded the mountain. The defenders numbered perhaps six hundred. The siege lasted eleven months. In February 1244, after treachery allowed crusaders to capture an outer position, surrender was negotiated.

The terms were surprising: those who renounced their faith would be spared; the perfecti and any who would not renounce would be burned. A two-week truce was granted for reflection. During this time, twenty-one people who had been offered safety instead received the consolamentum, joining the perfecti's fate.

On March 16, 1244, the burning occurred. A legend holds that four Cathars escaped with a treasure—possibly the Holy Grail, possibly sacred texts, possibly something else entirely. The legend has never been substantiated.