Femina: A New History of the Middle Ages, Through the Women Written Out of It

by Janina Ramírez

It is March 1225 and this fortress atop of a needle of stone has been under siege for the past ten months.5 Its inhabitants are starving and fear for their lives. A crusading force with as many as 10,000 soldiers waits at their door. But despite the all-too-present danger, a sense of peace has descended for a moment. Behind the three layers of barricades reaching up the cliff towards Montségur, whose very name means ‘safe hill’ in the local dialect of Occitan, a group of men, women and children wait patiently for the bishop, Guilhabert de Castres, to perform a ritual known as the ‘consolamentum’.6 Whatever the next hours and days bring, the placing of hands and the saying of prayers will offer comfort, promising these people that, after death, they will be freed from their flawed, imperfect bodies and their souls will return to the divine essence. The fortress at Montségur is described as the ‘head and heart’ by those within, and the ‘Synagogue of Satan’ by those on the outside.