Tag Archives: simon de montfort

Friday 7th March 2014 – THERE’S BEEN MORE RUBBISH …

… written about this place than anywhere else on the planet. And I shall be contributing my fair share too … "groan" – ed.

rennes le chateau aude france bérenger saunière tomb of godYes, you’ve guessed it. I’m in Rennes-le-Chateau and what am I doing here? Looking for the Holy Grail? Looking for the Children of Jesus? Looking for the tomb of Mary Magdalene? Looking for the lost Cathar treasure?

Or have I simply come for a nosy around to see what all the fuss has been about since an elderly housekeeper strung along a dazzling urbanite with promises of vast wealth and fortune in oder to ensure that she would be well-cared for in the twilight of her life?


interior of church st mary magdalene rennes le chateau aude france bérenger saunière tomb of godThis is the interior of the church of St Mary Magdalene at Rennes-le-Chateau and although it looks quite beautiful today (which it doesn’t, as it happens – it is badly in need of attention which is totally astonishing considering how much money comes here these days), it wasn’t anything like this 130 years ago.

When a new priest, Bérenger Saunière, was appointed to the parish, he was horrified at the state of the place. It had been abandoned during the French Revolution almost 100 years earlier and although there had been a religious revival, the fervour had not reached Rennes-le-Chateau and the building was on the point of collapse.


hollow column altar support rennes le chateau aude france bérenger saunière tomb of godHe borrowed a little money and made a start on some urgent renovations. But when he turned his attention to the altar, he found that one of the pillars was partly hollow and some parchments had been stuffed into it.

Hollow pillars are nothing new in churches. If you’ve been following my adventures over the last few years you will know from my frequent visits to Auvergnat churches with Marianne that it’s quite customary to have something similar in a church, and it’s where the sacred relics are kept.

And, as you know because I’ve told you this before, there was an inventory of relics carried out in all French churches in the mid-19th century. This church was no exception, and in the diocesan registers there is the report of the visit, and …
Bishop’s investigator “are there any relics in the church?”
Saunière’s predecessor “more than likely”.
It’s curious, to say the least, that Saunière’s predecessor could not give a definitive answer, especially when it’s something that falls within his responsibility.

As for the parchments, there is no dispute whatever that they were found. As to their content however, you’ll have to make up your own mind about that because every person tells a different story.

One thing that should maybe be mentioned however is that the pre-Revolutionary priest of the parish, the Abbé Bigou, was the confessor to several notable families in the area. Believing that the Revolutionaries would pillage absolutely everything that they could find, Bigou’s secret hiding place- the hollowed column used as an altar support – would make a safe cache for anything important.

And Bidou? He fled the Revolution and died in exile, never returning to Rennes-le-Chateau.

So Saunière found some parchments in a hollowed-out column. The next thing of note to happen is that some time later there’s a little enigmatic note in his diary – “ohh, by the way, I found a tomb today”. And then absolute silence.

He’s next in the graveyard attached to the church, frantically digging away to such a degree that the mayor of the commune makes a formal complaint to the Bishop. And then Saunière starts to spend money like water – tens of thousands of pounds.


villa bethania rennes le chateau aude france bérenger saunière tomb of god
He rebuilds the church and the presbytery, he refurbishes the village’s water supply, he builds a new road, and then he buys some land and builds himself a sumptious villa with outhouses and a magnificent tower that serves as a library.

He’s then investigated by his bishop – where did the money come from?

The conclusion is that he’s been selling masses. And there’s no doubt that he did. But just how many would he have to have sold in order to have amassed so much money? It’s unthinkable. He’s suspended from office but he carries on as before, taking no notice. Even though there’s a newspaper “advertisement” from the bishop advising his parishioners that he has been relieved of his functions, no-one takes any notice at all. He dies and takes his secret with him to the grave.

Only his faithful housekeeper is aware of the situation. Once she let slip that “the people around here are walking on gold but they just don’t realise it”. She sells the villa to an urbanite from the coast but remains in occupation promising the purchaser that she will make him rich beyond his wildest dreams. But she too takes her secret with her to the grave and that is that.

So where does this leave us?

I’m not going to waste anyone’s time with conjecture. There’s enough rubbish been written already about all of this.


magnificent defensive site rennes le chateau aude france bérenger saunière tomb of god
But firstly, one look at this site will tell you that this is the most magnificent defensive situation one could ever imagine, and the view from here commands absolutely everything. Nothing can move within a 20-mile radius without being observed from here.

If I were a neo-historical figure looking for a place to build a palace and a town for my followers, I would choose nowhere else but this. And there is evidence of occupation going back thousands of years – Stone Age, Iron Age, Gallo-Roman – you name it.

But the Visigoths came to this area in the 5th Century and set up a Kingdom. Their capital city was called Rhedae and from what we know, the site of Rennes-le-Chateau corresponds in every detail with the contemporary description of Rhedae.


visigoth carving rennes le chateau aude france bérenger saunière tomb of godTons of Visigoth artefacts have been discovered in the area and the church itself contains much evidence of Visigoth stonework, sculpturez and artefacts, such as this magnificent carving that Saunière discovered, face-down on the floor and being used as a flagstone.

There is therefore little doubt that the modern-day Rennes-le-Chateau is the historical Rhedae


rennes le chateau aude france bérenger saunière tomb of godIn fact, on my mega-ramble around the site this morning I counted three and perhaps 4 concentric rings of defences around the site, and there is no evidence to suggest that anything much of this relates to a more modern period.

So whoever was fortifying this site really meant it


rennes le chateau aude france bérenger saunière tomb of god
Now if you remember from our discussions a few years ago, it’s perfectly normal for there to be a small chapel included in a castle or chateau once the Lord has converted to Christianlty and, as I have said, there’s certainly a Visigoth presence in the church here.

But as Christianity gained in influence and barbarity slowly died out (not that you would ever notice it) the church would take over more of the site and the castle or chateau would be reduced in size.


chateau hautpoul blanchefort rennes le chateau aude france bérenger saunière tomb of godThis is the current chateau, right next to the church. But from what I can see at a distant glance, there is nothing particularly Visigoth about this – although I have been told subsequently that part of the foundations is believed to be of Visigoth origin.

And in any case, this is not where I would have my chateau. Mine would be on the highest corner of the walls with the best view – right in fact where Saunière build his tower-library.

Anyway, to continue onwards. Saunière says that he found a tomb. What evidence is there that there was a tomb here? Plenty, as it happens.

In several cases, there are entries in the parish registers of people being “buried in the tomb of the Lords” – the last one being in the 1730s. And it’s only after that date that the Lords (and Ladies) were buried ordinarily in the cemetery.

There have been three inspections of the church using SONAR – a device that measures reflected echoes from the ground – and they have each given a similar result – that at a depth of 5 metres or so under the church there is a reading that corresponds with what one would expect to see if there were a cavern below.

No entrance to this cavern was found, though, and the easiest way to hide an entrance into a cavern (from the outside, anyway) would be to use it as a grave and bury a body in it, and then fill it over. And maybe this was why Saunière was digging frantically in the graveyard. Perhaps the parchments had given him a clue to whose grave it was that led into the cavern.

As an aside – following what have been described as “a few deplorable incidents” (of which we can all hazard a guess) the cemetery is locked and access is only granted to relatives of the inhabitants of the cemetery. I wish that I had known this back in May 2013


library tower rennes le chateau aude france bérenger saunière tomb of god
But this is no place for speculation. There’s enough of that about already. And some of the speculation would appear to be manifestly false. Saunière was not always “rolling in money” – even after having discovered whatever it was that he discovered, he had times when there was so little about that the work on his beloved Villa Bethania came to a sudden halt. If he really were blackmailing someone about a guilty secret, he would simply go back for more cash. Or if it were a regular flow of money that he was receiving, he would have planned his work more carefully.

Some say that, being an unltra-Royalist (which he certainly appeared to be), the French monarchist parties were paying him handsomely to propagate their cause. But with a parish of just a few hundred souls, their vote wouldn’t have been worth very much.

And much of the rumour and supposition that circulated following a “disclosure” by someone in Paris in the 1970s and 1980s is now considered by most authorities to be based on a forgery.


grave father antoine gelis murdered coustaussa rennes le chateau aude france bérenger saunière tomb of god
Nevertheless, he did receive money – and plenty of it – from somewhere. And one of his confidants, a priest by the name of Father Gélis from the neighbouring village of Coustaussa, was brutally murdered one night while all of this was going on.

Even today, the locals at Coustaussa (and I found some pretty vocal local yokels who told be everything I want to know) consider that Gélis’ neohew did the deed and did it for the money that Gélis was supposed to have been handling on behalf of Saunière (although the local police dismissed the nephew as a suspect and went to great pains to state that the money remained untouched.

And so you pay your money and you take your choice.

If you want to find out more about the mystery of Rennes-le-Chateau, then there are enough books written on the subject to rebuild completely every single one of the three and maybe four concentric rings of denfensive walls around the village of Rennes-le Chateau. Don’t just read one of them though otherwise you will end up with a very skewed viewpoint and – perish the thought – you might even start to believe that author’s particular slant on all of this.

There are ten thousand books, ten thousand authors, and ten thousand different opinions about the mystery of Rennes-le Chateau.


chateau de coustaussa valley de sals rennes le chateau aude france bérenger saunière tomb of god
While I was in Coustaussa checking the grave of Father Antoine Gélis (and believe me, there is nothing in the world more sad than an abandoned cemetery), I went for prowl around the ruined castle.

It was built on an eminence at the foot of Rennes-le-Chateau with the aim of controlling the valley of the River Salz, which as you can see, it does in spades.


rennes le chateau de coustaussa aude france bérenger saunière tomb of god
It dates from the 11th and 12th centuries, times of much turbulance in this frontier province, and fell to the Crusading forces in 1210. Nevertheless, it was the scene of a small rebellion, which didn’t last long, but the reprisals were, well, severe, as you might expect whenever Simon de Montfort was about.

This led to the first round of demolition


rennes le chateau de coustaussa aude france bérenger saunière tomb of god
It was re-established as some kind of manor house in the 16th Century but the Revolution put paid to that. It was sold into private hands and the new owner treated it as a quarry, selling off all of the stones to the locals in the neighbourhood for their various building projects.

That really marked the end of the Chateau as we know it.


rennes le chateau aude france bérenger saunière tomb of god
It’s still in private hads today and one is supposed to ask the owner for permission to visit the castle (which is not for the faint-hearted as it really isn’t very secure)

I duly presented myself at the relevant address, only to discover that it has been a long time since the owner has taken the trouble to visit his own premises, and so I took it upon myself to enter. I wasn’t going to let a ruin like this pass me by.


So now having given Caliburn a good wash (because, believe me, he needed it after the snows and salty roads of Andorra) I’m now in the pretty-derelict spa town of Rennes-les-Bains. A couple of things I need to do here.

Thursday 6th March 2014 – I’M IN QUILLAN TONIGHT

And in case you are wondering where Quillan might be, it’s back in France again in the Département of the Aude about 50kms from Carcassonne.

But I’m not going to Carcassonne (well, at least, not yet) – I’m going to somewhere quite different, more of which anon

Today, though, I left Andorra nice and early in the bright sunlight and to cheer me up even more, I found a petrol station selling diesel at 111.3 cents per litre, which has to be the cheapest that I can get anywhere in Europe.

snow blown by wind off the top of the pyrenees andorra
The climb up and out of Andorra was rather fraught though. They were still dealing with the after-effects of the heavy snowfall the other day, and what wasn’t helping matters was that there was a really strong wind up aloft. That’s not a cloud coming over the top of the mountains – that’s the snow being whipped off by the wind.

I was going that way too and the higher the road climbed into the mountains, the worse the road became. But while there weren’t any problems, it was still uncomfortable.

What didn’t help matters was that the snowploughs had not been able to clear the parking areas at the ski resorts. Consequently, all of the holidaymakers simply abandoned (I refuse to use the word “parked”, as “parked” they certainly were not) all over the sides of the roads by the ski lifts regardless of the snowploughs and the moving traffic. It was total chaos in quite a few spots and had I been an Andorran policeman, all of the cars would have been towed away.

Thoughtless was not the word. Pig-ignorant and selfish are far better.


chateau de montségur ariege france
Now, how about this for something? That castle perched up there on that rock in the distance is one of the most enigmatic places in the whole of France and was on the top of the list for me to visit. It’s the reason why I’ve come down here.

It’s the Chateau de Montségur and while it can’t match Béziers for being the place of the greatest massacre of French civilians (well, okay, they weren’t French back in the 13th Century), what happened at Montségur is one of the most mysterious and bewildering events ever to occur in what is now France.


chateau de montségur ariege france monument burning 225 Cathars
Somewhere round about where that monument is (no-one can be exactly sure where the exact spot might have been) on 16th March 1244, approximately 225 Cathars and Cathar sympathisers were put inside a cage and were burnt to death.

And it has to be said that they were quite happy with the idea, to such an extent that about 20 of the victims actually volunteered to go to their doom. One eye-witness report tells of the Cathars singing as the flames were engulfing them.


chateau de montségur ariege franceIn brief … "thank goodness" – ed … Catharism was a religious sect that dissented from the teachings of Rome. Cathars were Christians without a doubt, but nevertheless their manner of worship and their beliefs were considered heretical by the Pope.

Catharism was quite strong in this region and some of the wealthiest landowners were Cathars. Consequently, other local notables didn’t need much encoragement to urge the Pope to declare a Crusade against the Cathars.

Béziers was one of the first Cathar towns to fall and it is said that maybe as many as 20,000 people in the town were burned alive.
It was reported that someone asked “who shall we burn? How do we know which ones are Cathars?”
The reply was quite simple. “Burn them all. God will recognise his own”.


chateau de montségur ariege franceBut as the noose slowly tightened around the Cathar region, the rock of Montségur was fortified and turned into a refuge of the last resort. Little by little, refugees arrived here bringing with them the religious treasures and relics from other Cathar centres that had succumbed. In 1243 there were 500 people living on the rock, all prepared to make a last stand.

Montségur by this time had already withstood several sieges but in May 1243, with opposition elsewhere being almost totally crushed, the whole might of the Crusade laid siege to the rock and slowly but surely, fought their way up the hill.


chateau de montségur ariege franceBy Christmas 1243 it was clear that the garrison could not hold on for much longer and in a daring escape, several of the parfaits, as the Cathar monks and nuns were known, took the entire treasure that had accumulated inside the castle, and disappeared with it to a place of safety. What became of it, no-one ever knew and no trace of it has ever been discovered to this day.

Even more incredibly, one of the escapees managed to return to the castle and he was there on 1st of March 1244 when the castle finally called a truce. The terms of the truce (which was effectively a surrender of course) was that the civilians could leave unmolested, but any parfait (there were said to be about 200 or so in the castle) who failed to renounce his or her vows would be burnt to death.


chateau de montségur ariege franceThe defenders asked for a 15-day truce (why, no-one knows) and this was accorded. And on the eve of the final day, an important ceremony of some nature was held within the castle. Later that evening, a few more parfaits slipped out of the castle, taking with them the final objects of importance that had (presumably) been used at the ceremony. And all of that disappeared too, never to resurface.

Next morning, the garrison surrendered. and it is said, quite astonishingly, that not only did no parfait renounce his or her vows, but another 20 or so claimed to have taken the vows in the meantime and demanded to be burnt – a request which of course was granted.


chateau de montségur ariege franceSo what was the treasure that was taken away at Christmas 1243?
Where was it taken to?
Why did the garrison demand a 15-day truce?
What was so important about the 15th of March that a truce was requested to cover that day?
What was the ceremony that took place on that day?
What were the objects that were used at the ceremony?
Why were they taken away?
Where were they taken to?
Why were so many people so happy to be taken away to their deaths?

There has been endless speculation about all of this and so many books and novels have been written that they could make a stairway up to the castle. But you can see why Montségur is a place of such interest to so many people.


modern village montaillou ariege france
This is another site in the Ariège that is associated with Cathars. It’s the village of Montaillou.

This is not the original site of the village, though. This is a more recent reincarnation. The village that we are interested in is the one that was in existence at the end of the 13th Century and this is about half a mile away from the present site. And unless you know where to look, you won’t find it at all.


medieval chapel montaillou ariege franceThis chapel sitting down in a field dates from the 11th Century and it was at the foot of the chapel that the original village was situated.

And so to set the scene, the fall of Montségur did not quite spell the end of Catharism in France. It lay dormant for probably 50 years but someone discovered several documents setting out the important tenets of Cathar belief, and he resurrected the religion. Montaillou was one of the most important “new Cathar” villages, so much so that a Papal inquisition descended on the place and arrested all of the inhabitants.

They were fully interrogated and their answers were fully recorded. There were indeed parfaits in the village but many escaped. One by one, though, they were tracked down and burnt to death


medieval village site montaillou ariege franceSo while you look at the site of the Medieval village and marvel at how clearly the traces of the roads and habitations show up through the snow after 7 centuries of abandonment and agricultural exploitation, let me tell you a little about what is so interesting about the village.

If you remember my visit to Red Bay in Labrador in 2010

you’ll recall how a chance find in a dusty, forgotten archive led to a discovery of the 2nd-most-important historic site in Canada, something similar has happened here.


ruined castle chateau montaillou ariege comte de foix franceWhile you look at the ruins of the castle of the Counts of Foix, situated on a hill nearby, I’ll tell you that someone by the name of Emmanuel Leroy Ladurie went a-ferretting in some dusty, forgotten archives of one of the local bishops, and actually discovered the verbatim records of the interviews between the members of the Papal Inquisition and the inhabitants of Montaillou.

He wrote a book (a copy of which is in my possession) to summarise the information gleaned from the interviews and it has become one of the most important references to life in rural France at the end of the 13th Century, adding a great deal to whatever was previously known about the subject.


chateau de puivert aude franceWhile we are on the subject of castles, this whole area is teeming with them. Not quite one on every hilltop but pretty much near enough.

This is the Chateau de Puivert and was another Cathar stronghold. It fell to the Crusaders after a siege of just three days in November 1210 and the leader of the crusaders, Simon de Montfort, granted it to one of his marshalls.

As an aside, de Montfort was the father of the Simon de Montfort who opposed Henry III of England during the Barons’ Revolt of 1264-67. It was however Montfort père who was responsible for most of the atrocities committed against the Cathars during the early years of the Crusade.


hanomag kurier diesel montségur ariege franceIt wasn’t all work either. I’ve seen a couple of really interesting motor vehicles today, highlight of which has to be this German Hanomag Kurier light truck.

Apart from the fact that its engine is a diesel, I know nothing else whatever about it. Hanomag stopped making trucks in 1969 and so this gives me some idea of the date. I wouldn’t have put it many years earlier than that. Still, I’d take it home with me tomorrow given half a chance.