Château de Montségur ✢ Last Stronghold of the Cathars in Ariège, France ✢ Albigensian Crusade Castle

• Become a patron and keep my quest to document French heritage up and running: • For printable wall art: Château de Montségur is a ruined fortress in southwestern France. It was rebuilt on what is considered the last Cathar stronghold destroyed at the end of the Albigensian Crusade. At just over 1,200 m above sea level, the fortress dominates the valleys of Ariège along the Pyrenees. In the beginning of the 13th century an existing fortress was restored by Occitan nobleman Raymond de Péreille in order to provide Cathars a safe haven on top of a rocky outcrop as French crusaders pressed against them. The fortress became a refuge and eventually the seat of the Cathar Church, joined by faydits, lords and knights dispossessed of their land by the crusaders. The Catholic Church in turn called Montségur the ’Synagogue of Satan’. Several hundred men and women, the majority of them non-com