Château de Montségur The Château de Montségur is a former fortress near Montségur , a commune in the Ariège department in southwestern France . Its ruins are the site of a razed stronghold of the Cathar s . The present fortress on the site , though described as one of the " Cathar castles , " is actually of a later period . It has been listed as a " monument historique " by the French Ministry of Culture since 1862 . Geography . The ruins of Montségur are perched at a precarious altitude in the south of France near the Pyrenees Mountains . Located in the heart of France ' s Languedoc - Midi - Pyrénées regions , southwest of Carcassonne , Montségur dominates a rock formation known as a " pog " — a term derived from the local Occitan dialect — " puòg " , or " puèg " , meaning " peak , " " hill , " " mountain . " History . The earliest signs of human settlement in the area date back to the stone age , around 80 , 000 years ago . Evidence of Roman occupation such as Roman currency and tools have also been found in and around the site . In the Middle Ages the Montsegur region was ruled by the Counts of Toulouse , the Viscounts of Carcassonne and finally the Counts of Foix . Little is known about the fortification until the time of the Albigensian Crusade . The Cathar castle . In about 1204 , Raymond de Péreille , one of the two lords of Montségur , the other being his cousin Pierre - Roger de Mirepoix , declared to rebuild the castle that had been in ruins for 40 years or more . Refortified , the castle became a center of Cathar activities , and home to Guilhabert de Castres , a Cathar theologian and bishop . In 1233 the site became " the seat and head " ( domicilium et caput ) of the Cathar church . It has been estimated that the fortified site housed about 500 persons when in 1241 , Raymond VII besieged Montsegur without success . The murder of representatives of the inquisition by about fifty men from Montsegur and faidit s at Avignonet on May 28 , 1242 was the trigger for the final military expedition to conquer the castle . In 1242 Hugues de Arcis led the military command of about 10 , 000 royal troops against the castle that was held by about 100 fighters and was home to 211 Perfect s ( who were pacifists and did not fight ) and civilian refugees . The siege lasted nine months , until in March 1244 , the castle finally surrendered . Approximately 220 Cathars were burned en masse in a bonfire at the foot of the pog when they refused to renounce their faith . Some 25 actually took the ultimate Cathar vow of " consolamentum perfecti " in the two weeks before the final surrender . Those who renounced the Cathar faith were allowed to leave and the castle itself was destroyed . In the days prior to the fall of the fortress , several Cathars allegedly slipped through the besiegers ' lines carrying away a mysterious " treasure " with them . While the nature and fate of this treasure has never been identified , there has been much speculation as to what it might have consisted of — from the treasury of the Cathar Church to esoteric books or even the actual Holy Grail . Montségur is often named as a candidate for the Holy Grail castle — and indeed there are linguistic similarities in the Grail romance " Parzival " ( circa 1200 – 1210 ) written by Wolfram von Eschenbach . In " Parzival " , the grail castle is called Monsalvat , similar to Montségur and with the same meaning : " safe mountain , secure mountain . " The name of Raymond de Péreille , the actual historic seigneur of Montségur , has a slight similarity to the protagonist of Eschenbach ' s epic , the knight Parzival . In " Jüngerer Titurel " ( 1272 ) by Albrecht von Scharfenberg , another Grail epic , the first king of the Holy Grail is named Perilla . Myths and legends apart , the history of Montségur actually is both dramatic and mysterious . The siege was an epic event of heroism and zealotry : a veritable Masada of the Cathar faith whose demise is symbolized by the fall of the mountain - top fortress ( although isolated Cathar cells persisted into the 1320s in southern France and northern Italy ) . The later fortress . The present fortress ruin at Montségur is not from the Cathar era . The original Cathar fortress of Montségur was entirely pulled down by the victorious royal forces after its capture in 1244 . It was gradually rebuilt and upgraded over the next three centuries by royal forces . The current ruin so dramatically occupying the site , and featured in illustrations , is referred to by French archeologists as " Montsegur III " and is typical of post - medieval royal French defensive architecture of the 17th century . It is not " Montsegur II , " the structure in which the Cathars lived and were besieged and of which few traces remain today . This is a discrepancy that the French tourist authority underplays and one that Cathar enthusiasts often overlook , especially when discussing Montségur ' s alleged solar alignment characteristics said to be visible on the morning of the summer solstice . This often mentioned solar phenomenon , allegedly occurring in an alignment of two windows in the fortress wall , has not been scientifically surveyed , measured , recorded , or confirmed . The Groupe de Récherches Archéologiques de Montségur et Environs ( GRAME ) ( Archeological Research Group of Montsegur and Vicinity ) , which conducted a definitive 13 - year archeological excavation of Montségur in 1964 – 76 , concluded in its final report that : The small ruins of the terraced dwellings , immediately outside the perimeter of the current fortress walls on the north - eastern flank are , however , confirmed to be traces of authentic former Cathar habitations .