Montségur: Mist, Martyrs, & Heavy Metal

I read that in cycling terms, the Col de Montségur is a Category 2 mountain pass, popular with those slender, Lycra-clad aliens who chase gradients for glory. The same article revealed it to be known for scenic views, the highlight of which is a spectacular perspective of a historic castle ruin. Perched atop a pog – a knuckle of rock rising from the land like a huge pudding-shaped dumpling – the mountain itself propels the fortress of Montségur skyward.

The day we arrived, the Col offered neither tableaux nor triumph. Only cloud – of the solid, enveloping, can’t-see-the-end-of-your-bonnet type. It seemed as though we’d climbed into the sky itself, and as we parked at the highest point of the pass, we could see precisely – nothing.

At this point in our Languedocian journey, I had only just heard of the Cathars – an Eastern religious movement that rooted itself in southern France during the Middle Ages. Parked beneath one of the region’s most symbolically charged rocks, this was rather embarrassing. The blanket of cloud and rain concealed a history so heavy you could almost feel it exhale.

En route, we’d passed through the hilltop city of Fanjeaux – another Cathar stronghold – and a place we were excited to see for the first time. After close to a decade of full-time travel, we planned a proper pause from life on the road – and had booked a farmhouse near there for the winter. So, this time, there was no need to stop – we knew we’d be back to do it justice.

In Mirepoix, a town rebuilt on the plan of a bastide new town after a devastating flood in 1289, I spotted a roadside patisserie with a Beast-sized parking space opposite. Delighted, I raced across to fill my bag with bread, cake, flan, and two absolutely heroic wheels of pain aux raisins. Our early start from Cordes-sur-Ciel to avoid driving in the heat of the day meant we were settled at our destination by 11.30 a.m. Not that heat posed a problem as we ascended into the mountains. At 3,500 ft (1059 m), the top of the pass was cool, damp, misty, and moody. I love the mountains like that – all brooding and mysterious – but I would have liked to have at least caught a glimpse of the legendarily spectacular and iconic château we’d come to see!

The footpath up to Château de Montségur is steep, narrow, and edged with sheer drops. In clear weather it’s dramatic, but it’s not one to tackle in poor visibility with four dogs. So we waited. And waited. We kept ourselves occupied – I got on with some writing, hoped, and pleaded with the weather gods – but the mist stayed put all day.

At around 8 p.m., while we were listening to the BBC radio comedy Just a Minute, the cloud suddenly lifted. For ten glorious minutes, Montségur revealed itself: the ruined citadel balanced improbably on its knoll.

Then it vanished again.

Those few minutes were all we got – but it was a treat in more ways than one

Mark and I are great fans of immature geography. Over the years, we have climbed many mountains named after lady lumps. Mam Tor, the Pap of Glencoe – and we’ve observed the vertiginous Cioch or ‘breast’ on Skye from a safe distance.

Montségur definitely belongs in this tradition.

Although some would argue that ‘Mont Ségur’ translates as ‘secure mountain’, Mark and I both agreed that it is undoubtedly a boob.

A dramatic, defiant, proudly upstanding, single bosom, wreathed in a lacy brassiere of cloud.

That night, it rained hard enough to make me worry about our descent. I’m glad I wasn’t fully aware of what the road ahead had in store – or I would not have slept a wink!

The following morning, a couple from the small van next door came over for coffee. Carolyn and Andy had spotted the Scottish flag on the back of The Beast and made a cheerful reference to the grey mizzle outside the windows.

“This is exactly like Scottish weather!”

We concurred – though they found it hilarious that we were sporting shorts and T-shirts while they were wrapped in down jackets and beanies. I maintain that unless it is freezing, skin does not get waterlogged – and dries much faster than fabric.

So shorts are the most practical wet-weather gear!

Further explanation for their Arctic attire came when they told us they lived on Tenerife, whose climate is somewhat milder than England’s. They had left for a couple of months of road-tripping, so we compared routes. Since we were on our way to Africa, we picked Andy’s brains. He told us he had cycled through Mali, Mauritania, and Senegal, from where he was evacuated during COVID. “I flew to Bergen in a military plane, and experienced the joy of going from +40°C in Africa to -15°C in Norway!” THAT would necessitate a downie and a beanie!

We’d been warned against visiting Mali, but Andy said the people everywhere were wonderful. Sadly, it’s inevitably the regimes that cause the problems and make it dangerous for travellers. “Mauritania was an experience,” he said. “There’s nothing there – and surprisingly, everything is expensive. Part of the problem is that they have to export things like fish for processing, then re-import them at a premium.”

We shared my Mirepoix cake, and I showed them the photos of the castle because they hadn’t managed to see it. “Look at what you could have done…” Given the weather, it looked like my photos were the best view they would get.

Eventually, they headed off into the mist to walk their pup, and we fired up The Beast to begin our descent – down the hairpin bends of destiny, with slightly clenched buttocks beneath our metaphorical kilts.

It was only later, when I did some further research about the Cathars, that I grasped the full significance of where we’d been.

Montségur wasn’t just another dramatic ruin. During the Albigensian Crusade – the brutal campaign launched by the Catholic Church and the French crown to eradicate ‘heresy’ in Languedoc – it was a major Cathar stronghold.

The Cathars believed in a dualist world that was created and governed by two opposing forces which were locked in perpetual conflict. A good ‘god’ and his evil rival – much like the Christian idea of God and Satan. In this, as is so often the case with religion, Cathar beliefs were distinct from – but not too far removed – from the beliefs of mainstream Christianity.

However, Cathar doctrine diverged from Christian teachings in a number of important ways. Their god was both male and female. The female aspect ‘Sophia’ represented wisdom, and this encouraged gender equality in Cathar communities. They believed in reincarnation: that a soul would be reborn until it relinquished the material world and existed solely in a spiritual state. As such, they encouraged celibacy because birth condemned another poor soul to be imprisoned in a body, trapped in the devil’s material world.

I imagine their biggest sin, though, was to criticise the Catholic Church. Cathars were largely vegetarian, lived austere lives, and believed in manual labour for everyone. They disparaged the Church’s wealth, along with its clergy’s greed, hypocrisy, and lechery. Unsurprisingly, this did not curry favour with Rome.

The Roman Catholic Church condemned Catharism as ‘The Great Heresy’ and declared that Cathars were not even Christian.

In the first half of the 13th century, Montségur withstood three sieges. However, it was such a vital Cathar refuge that in 1243, the French king sent ten thousand troops to subdue its defensive force of little more than a hundred.

Pierre-Roger IX of Mirepoix, a seasoned soldier who may – or may not – have been a Cathar himself, defended the fortress. Opposing him was his long-standing enemy, Guy de Lévis, a crusader lord who had already seized Pierre-Roger’s lands.

It took ten months, but finally the besieged castle fell.

At the end, Pierre-Roger did negotiate a remarkable fifteen-day truce. He secured safe passage for his soldiers and a window for the Cather treasure to be removed. However, the terms of the surrender gave the Cathar faithful a stark choice: renounce your faith or be burned at the stake.

More than two hundred Cathars – men, women, and children – refused to recant. They were marched down to a field at the foot of the mountain, now known as the Prat dels Cremats – the Field of the Burned – and were burned alive in a mass execution. Some accounts suggest they sang as the flames rose.

Pierre-Roger survived, but faded into obscurity. Guy de Lévis became lord of Montségur.

Fans of heavy metal music may already be familiar with this story. London-based rockers Iron Maiden referenced these events in a track entitled Montségur on their Dance of Death album.

Standing beneath that mountain, even wrapped in mist, the weight of such a brutal episode is hard to ignore. And as if all that real history weren’t enough, Montségur’s misty heights have attracted many layers of legend.

The Inquisition recorded evidence of Cathar treasure, which some believe included the Holy Grail. Did the Cathars remove the Grail – or is it still hidden within the castle?

This mythology fascinated a German SS officer and archaeologist, Otto Rahn, who believed Montségur to be the legendary ‘Grail castle’. He wrote two books about it: The Grail Crusade and The Court of Lucifer. During the Second World War, German soldiers did excavate the site, perhaps funded by the Nazis. Heinrich Himmler certainly had a fascination with the occult and presented Hitler with a copy of The Court of Lucifer as a birthday gift.

Other stories suggest the site was sacred long before the Middle Ages, and possibly linked to a sun cult. The castle’s alignment marks the solstices with millimetre precision. At the winter equinox, the sun’s first rays bisect the castle, while in summer, they thread together arrow slits on either side of the keep. However, the Cathars did not build religious structures. In any case, the current ruins date from a later period – and reportedly, a similar phenomenon occurs at the nearby Château de Quéribus. Perhaps it’s just a tribute to the medieval architects, who oriented their buildings with purpose, but perhaps not with sun worship in mind.

There’s no hard evidence for any of this – but then Montségur is not somewhere that needs proof. It feels older, stranger, and more significant than a mere monument in stone.

When you visit, some places don’t reveal themselves all at once. Some make you work and do your research. They wrap themselves in cloud and mystery, then say, come back when you’re ready.

Montségur is one of those.

Join us next time to see what happened on our buttock-clenching descent with a terrified a hitchhiker.

Cover image of Montségur on a clear day by claude alleva from Pixabay

Did You Miss?

Below are links to the other posts in my Cathar Country series about the Languedoc in Southern France.

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Image – Château de Quéribus PhilippeContal, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0&gt;, via Wikimedia Commons licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.