13 Peyrepertuse
14 Villerouge-Termenès
15 Rennes-le-Château
16 The Pech de Bugarach: final walk, final thoughts
1 Useful addresses
2 General publications
3 Summary of the Walks Described in this Book
Walkers near Quéribus castle (Section 12)
PREFACE
The Cathars were a dissident sect of medieval Christians. They enjoyed widespread support in what is today southern France. In the 13th century they were brutally suppressed and took refuge in hilltop fortresses, known today as ‘Cathar castles’.
Those castles are set in an area of beautiful countryside which offers excellent walking opportunities. It is a varied, challenging and fascinating region, enjoying plenty of sunshine and rich in wildlife. It has plentiful reasonably priced accommodation and abundant opportunities for wine tasting and gastronomic delectation.
The region is today one of France’s most popular walking areas, but it was not always so – most of the walking routes in Cathar castle country seem to have been developed in relatively recent times. For example, when the traveller and author Nicholas Crane passed through St-Paul-de-Fenouillet in the early 1990s on his epic mountain walk across Europe, he was told that he was in the ‘dead zone’, where tourists were rarely seen, even in high summer. Today St-Paul is close to new waymarked walking routes, which pass beneath Quéribus and other Cathar castles. It is now frequented by walkers and visitors from many parts of Europe and beyond.
It seems that everyone who tours this stunning countryside and reads about the tragedy of the Cathars is moved by the landscape and by that story. Many are also gripped by the several legends that surround the Cathar castles – of buried treasure, the Holy Grail, sun worship, and contemplative ladies dressed in white who had an unfortunate knack of precipitating disaster.
This book concentrates mainly on the walks, the landscape, and the history of the Cathars’ downfall. But, insofar as any lesson is drawn from this tour of a region that witnessed the crusade against the Cathars (and which, like most of Europe, also suffered two millennia of almost constant combat), that lesson is touched upon lightly in the final chapter. Entirely devoid of originality, that conclusion is at least brief. It is – quite simply – give peace a chance.
For that reason (among many others), this book is dedicated with gratitude to two lifelong campaigners for peace of my close acquaintance, namely my parents Pat and Alec Mattingly.
Alan Mattingly, Vernet-les-Bains
Like many Cathar castles, Lordat castle towers above its village (Section 6)
INTRODUCTION
This castle hath a pleasant seat; the air
Nimbly and sweetly recommends itself
Unto our gentle senses.
Macbeth, Act I
There is a point on a walk in this book where, after an hour or so’s steady walking uphill on a track which winds through fields and woods rich in wild flowers and fungi, you emerge into a large clearing on high ground.
Imagine that you are standing there now. To the north, the ground falls and rises in a series of valleys and ridges. It is a warm, sleepy, thickly wooded landscape, rural France at its most rural. These are the foothills of the eastern Pyrenees. They ripple northwestwards towards the cathedral city of Toulouse and northeastwards to the medieval spires of Carcassonne. At their far eastern end they meet the coastline of la grande bleue, the Mediterranean Sea.
In places, movements in the earth’s crust in recent geological times thrust skywards immense slices of these foothills. Later, powerful torrents, fed by melting ice during colder millennia, sculpted from these blocks steep-sided peaks and razor-edge ridges. Much later, human beings seeking protection from their neighbours, bandits and invaders built fortified settlements on many of the high, isolated locations which natural processes bequeathed to this region. Their owners constantly restored and strengthened those fortresses.
By the early medieval period this region was known as Languedoc. It was divided into a large number of near-independent baronies whose lords each possessed one or more castles. Many of those fortresses are today celebrated throughout the world as ‘Cathar castles’. From your imaginary position, you are about to understand why the castles have achieved such fame.
Over your right shoulder, the ground rises again, to a hill covered in beech forest. Your footpath curves in the direction of that hill, and as you turn to cast your eye along its route, you may see white mist rushing up the left-hand side of the hill from far below. If the mist then starts to clear, be prepared for your jaw to drop. For what will emerge from the cloud, just beyond the beech-covered hill, is the sight of one of the most awesome and evocative rock pinnacles in Europe. There, soaring into the sky like a gigantic upright megalith, its craggy limestone slopes gleaming white, looms the 1200m Pog de Montségur (pog comes from the Occitan language, and means hill or mountain – see Montségur, section 9). On the very summit of the pog sit the formidable remains of the most renowned fortress in Cathar castle country.
It was here in 1244, after a siege lasting several months, that the principal mountain stronghold of the ‘heretical’ Languedoc Cathars fell. It was taken by the far superior forces of the French Crown and the Catholic Church. Shortly afterwards, 200 Cathars were burnt alive at the foot of the mountain.
Who were the Cathars?
The term ‘Cathar’ was not used by the followers of this faith – who referred to themselves simply as Christians – but was employed by the Catholics when labelling this particular group of heretics. It may originally have been a term of offence, meaning cat-lover – that is, a sorcerer or witch. The Cathars’ ‘priests’ – women as well as men – were referred to by their Catholic opponents as ‘Perfects’, meaning perfect (that is, complete) heretics. But they were known by their followers as simply good Christians, or Bons Hommes and Bonnes Femmes.
Monument to the Cathars who were burnt at the stake below Montségur castle, 16 March 1244 (Section 9)
However, they had profound theological differences with the Catholic Church. In particular, they had a belief – dualism – that good and evil spring from different sources. Therefore the material world – which they saw as plainly evil – could not have been created by the God of the Bible. Such a belief was totally at odds with Catholic doctrine. The Cathars even saw the Catholic Church itself as the work of the devil. The broadcasting of such opinion was not a good strategy for surviving the heretic-burning years of medieval Europe.
The Cathar faith took root in Languedoc in the 11th century. The Bons Hommes and Bonnes Femmes who preached it were ascetic; they worked in the community as, for example, craftsmen; they preached in a language that everyone could understand; and they levied no taxes. Not surprisingly, their popularity spread rapidly among the independent-minded people of Languedoc. The region’s ‘nobility’ (its warlords) protected them; indeed, many members of ‘noble’ families in Languedoc were themselves Cathars.
From the outset, the Catholic Church saw the Cathars as a threat to its very existence. The French Crown, whose territory at that time was confined to the northern part of what is now France, became eager to take possession of Languedoc. These two irresistible forces, Church and Crown, together met head-on the immovable object