Walks in the Cathar Region - Cathar castles of south-west France

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This castle hath a pleasant seat; the air
Nimbly and sweetly recommends itself
Unto our gentle senses.

Macbeth, Act 1

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.

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 of the Cathar faith. They launched against the Cathars a crusade just as cruel and bloody as those dispatched to ‘save’ the Holy Land. After a long struggle, the Cathar church was exterminated and the French Crown seized Languedoc.

After the crusade, the border of France moved south to Cathar country. It needed strong fortification against France’s Spanish neighbours, so the French rebuilt and strengthened several of the castles in which the Cathars had once taken refuge. In the 17th century the border moved south once again, after a war that ended in triumph for the French. That left many of the ‘Cathar castles’ a long way north of the new border. The castles thus lost their strategic importance; most were demolished or abandoned, and then fell into ruin.

And thus the ‘castles in the sky’, now symbols of the Cathar faith and its demise, were bequeathed to posterity. The sometimes romantic, sometimes forbidding castles such as Montségur, Quéribus, Puilaurens, Peyrepertuse and Lastours became the centrepieces of fantastic fables and, in our time, tourist attractions of international repute.

The citadels we see today would have mostly been unrecognisable to the Cathars; in the majority of cases, the remains are of structures that were built after the Cathar period. But no matter: what is beyond dispute is that the castles offer stunning sights and are fascinating places to visit. They are irresistible focal points for fine walks in a lovely part of the French countryside. They will also forever be linked to the thought-provoking story of the Cathars, which touches everyone who visits this region.

Walking and thinking go together. Cathar castle country offers profound opportunities for both.