Sign up to The Irish Times Archive (1859 - 2008)My Account »

Sat 11 Nov 2002Consolation for the CatharsThe cultural legacy of an ancient religious sect that was almost wiped out in the Inquisition is everywhere to be seen in the south of France - and its influence today is now more evident than Catholicism, writes Michael FoleyAfter a 10-month siege, the forces of the Inquisition and the King of France captured the castle of Montsegur, standing 1,208 metres high on a remote limestone peak in the Pyrenees, on March 2nd, 1244. Two hundred of the Cathar Parfaits, the heretical priests, were burned to death at the base of the peak, at a point now marked by a small monument, erected in 1960 and dedicated to those "pure Christians". The siege of Montsegur was the effective end of the Cathars. There was a further 70 to 80 years in which the Inquisition rooted out the last traces of the heresy from the little mountain villages of Languedoc but, by about 1325, it was wiped out and that really should have been that. The Cathars should have become a footnote, or perhaps a research topic for graduate history students.