The objects of today’s walk were the castles at Lastours, just 12 miles to the north of Carcassonne. The castles are four separate keeps on the same outcrop of rock, almost surrounded by the rivers Orbiel and Grestillou. An extraordinary collection of fortresses they have lived on in the memory of those who have followed the crusade to exterminate Catharism. They were never important fortresses but were impressive and difficult to capture.
It is perhaps the change in the fortunes of Cabaret, one of the four castles, well known in the C12 and C13 as a centre of troubadour poetry, that is the most enlightening part of the history. This was an area of Europe that lived finely and well. The landowners could enjoy their many personal possessions and wealth. This world has been compared with our own, the suggestion being that we would have recognized and understood their society, something that would not have been possible in much of medieval Europe.
Yet they became witnesses of one of the worst atrocities that even medieval Europe could conjour. 100 people were blinded, had their upper lips and noses cut off and forced to march the 20 miles from their home, the little circular town of Bram, to Cabaret. The leader of the group had one eye left un-gouged so that he could lead the way. This as a warning to the defenders of Lastours.
It is the brutality, rather than the fact, of the Albigensian crusade that still shocks. And it is the desperately different world views that co-existed that make us so aware of our own beliefs or lack of them, and the extent to which we have changed with respect to our ancestors.
Today Tony Blair is made to answer for his decision to invade Iraq and remove Saddam Hussein.
