Cathar castles

Common card · No. 494777

Cathar castles (in French Châteaux cathares) are a group of medieval castles located in the Languedoc region. Some had a Cathar connection in that they offered refuge to dispossessed Cathars in the thirteenth century. In July 2026, UNESCO designated them as a World Heritage Site under the name Royal Capetian Fortresses of Languedoc. Many of these sites were replaced by new castles built by the victorious French Crusaders and the term Cathar castle is also applied to these fortifications despite their having no connection with Cathars. The fate of many Cathar castles, at least for the early part of the Crusade, is outlined in the contemporary Occitan "Chanson de la Croisade", translated into English as the "Song of the Cathar Wars (the crusade)".

Read on Wikipedia · Image BlueBreezeWiki, CC BY-SA 3.0