Sublime

With Raymond now a spent force, the Church had only one place left to tackle that openly defied them: the Pyrenean fortress of Montségur, the so-called ‘Synagogue of Satan’ that had been a Cathar stronghold ever since the days of Innocent’s ‘peace and faith’ campaign.

Béziers – which had refused to hand over its Cathars to the Cistercians in 1205 – was annihilated on 22 July, as described in the Prologue above. Such was the scale of atrocity that even Crusade apologists such as Peter of Les Vaux-de-Cernay felt the need to distance themselves from it by blaming the bloodbath on the ribauds, the mercenaries. That

The news of the atrocity at Béziers spread like wildfire. The Crusaders marched on Narbonne, which, fearing a similar fate, surrendered at the first sight of the Crusade. Carcasonne was next, and Raymond Roger Trencavel knew it. He implemented a scorched-earth policy around the city to make the land as inhospitable as possible for the Crusaders, wh

Montségur had been refortified in 1204 by Raymond of Pereille. He was a Believer, and both his mother and mother-in-law were Perfect. The castle had been a refuge for Cathars during the Albigensian Crusade, and when the Inquisition began its work, Guilhabert de Castres, the Cathar bishop of Toulouse, approached Raymond with the request that the cas

8For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not from you; it is the gift of God;+ 9it is not from works, so no one may boast.

“My eyes have seen Your salvation, Which You have prepared in the presence of all peoples.” LUKE 2:30–31 NASB