pilgrimages

An apricot sun leaked into the pale sky, where swallows swirled in crazy patterns way above the village. A cock crowed. A tractor rumbled along the Rue de Village. The air was still.

We ate warm stewed apricots, bought in a nearby village market, and marvelled at a taste we remembered from childhood. 

In such a peaceful place it is difficult to imagine the tragic events of the 12^th and 13^th centuries in this region. We are staying in the Aude region of the south of France, Cathar country. I want to learn more about the story of the Albigensian Crusade by following the Cathar trail past crumbling castles on craggy mountain tops.

After breakfast, we decided to go to the last stronghold of the Cathars, the remote Montsegur Chateau in the Pyrenees, rumoured to protect the Holy Grail.

Puivert... en route to Montsegur

The scenery en route to Montsegur was stunning; forests, medieavel villages, cyclists on windy mountain roads, broad patchworked valleys, and then the peaks of the Pyrenees cloaked in mist and crowned with clouds. This is Ariege, land of my ancestors, the Counts of Foix, who were also the Princes of Andorra.

Chateau at Puivert, former home of Cathar troubadour-poets and musicians.

According to my mother's family tree, I am a descendant of Esclarmonde de Foix, a legendary leader of the Cathars, a religion which the Pope and the French King regarded as heretical. I am fascinated that I can trace my lineage back so far in history.

Esclarmonde, a mother of six, was widowed when she was sixty, and became what was effectively a high priestess of the Cathars, with the full support of her brother, the Count of Foix.

Castle ruins at Quillan on the River Aude.

Catharism spread like wildfire in the 12^th and 13^th centuries as a reaction against the corruption, elitism and power of the Catholic Church. Cathars thought that the 'catholic wolves', had distorted Christ's messages about how to live. The only prayer of the Cathars was the 'Lord's prayer' and their only sacrament was the 'consolatum', the laying on of hands.

Unlike the Catholics, they believed in the equality of women, which is why Esclarmonde played such an important role. Cathars valued work and austerity. Esclarmonde sold all her wordly goods and gave away her castle. She established schools for girls and hospitals [remember this is back in the 12^th century], and initiated the rebuilding of Montsegur Castle as a Cathar stronghold against the relentless campaigns by the Catholic hierarchy and the French monarchy which continued for well over 100 years until the Cathars were eliminated or driven into secrecy.

Queribus castle... its view... its state... its descent.

I love the following story told in the chronicle of Guillaume de Puylaurens, about my great, great, great............. great grandmother, from 9 centuries ago. 

It was in 1207 at the conference between the opposing Cathars and Catholics at Pamiers Castle that Esclarmonde spoke on behalf of the Cathars. One of the Brothers cried, “Really Madam, spin on your distaff, it ill becomes you to participate in such discussions.” 

And how many centuries later was I sticking the feminist slogan of the seventies, 'Woman's place is everywhere!' on my car bumper?

Esclarmonde's story has merged with the myths surrounding her illegitimate niece and namesake, who died on the pyre at Montsegur, when after a ten month siege, during the harshest of winters, the Cathars were overcome and given the choice of conversion or being burnt at the stake. More than two hundred chose the martyrdom and were burnt alive at Montsegur.

Montsegur castle where more than 200 Cathars were burned alive in 1243.

Personally, I don't understand anyone holding a world view so strongly that they would choose that most horrific of deaths, but I certainly admire their courage and mourn the loss of the lives of so many thousands of people in this region of France, so long ago.

As I struggled up the steep stony path to Montsegur, I thought, “Esclarmonde was here.” She walked this path nine centuries ago, first as noblewoman then as a 'good Christian', the name for the leaders of the Cathars.

What was she like? Slim and wiry with tiny feet and aristocratic pale skin? Legs as agile as those of a mountain goat? Or was she stocky and round with staunch muscular legs? Did she wear the pilgrim's hooded cloak and walk with a staff or did she ride on horseback?

Was I hoping to feel her presence on this mountain top? Yes I was!

In a way, I am travelling here as a pilgrim, hoping to find in a particular place or through a journey, some insight, the way that pilgrims of every religion have done.

A pilgrim's progress.

In our secular western societies there seems to be a resurgence of interest in pilgrimages as spiritual or moral quest.

On the flight from Australia, I watched a film to pass the time. It was 'The Way' a contemporary American film about a man whose son dies in France as he begins the 'Camino de Santiago', an increasingly popular pilgrims' walk across the Pyrenees. The father, a golf playing conservative, middle class guy, doesn't understand his son's itinerant lifestyle. But he decides to do the walk, carrying his son's ashes, and of course he not only 'finds' his son but rediscovers himself. Wasn't it Jesus who said, “I am the Way.”?

Once a pilgrimage meant travelling to visit relics, like bits of the cross, or threads from Jesus's robe or the bones of dead saints, or places where miracles have happened or other important religious sites. [Lourdes is the second most visited place in France, and Carcassonne, a Cathar castle, is the third].

Mirepoix, Ariege... site of yet another massacre of Cathares by the Catholic Crusaders.

Now the meaning of pilgrimage has expanded. Some of us modern day pilgrims are not sure what we are seeking. Some kind of revelation, forgiveness or absolution or enlightenment? Like the Holy Grail, it may never be found or may not even exist.

Perhaps it is the journey that matters. Not the destination.

Buildings in early days did not not have 'insulation ratings' but the Montsegur Castle would surely score highly.