Pierced Rock - Château de Peyrepertuse, Cathar Castle in the French Pyrenees

This ruined fortress was one of the so-called Cathar castles located high in the French Pyrénées and the meaning of its name is "pierced rock" in the Occitan language. The castle is one of the "Five Sons of Carcassonne" along with the castles Quéribus, Puilaurens, Termes, and Aguilar, all situated atop 'unassailable' rocky peaks. It is called 'Celestial Carcassonne' because it is the biggest of the five castles.

At the time of the Albigensian Crusade, it was the fief of Guillaume de Peyrepertuse who, not wanting to submit, was excommunicated in 1224. He did finally submit after the failure of the siege of Carcassonne, and the castle became a French possession in 1240.

One of the prominent military leaders of the Albigensian Crusade was Simon de Montfort, a nobleman known from the Fourth Crusade, which ended in the sack of Constantinople. During the Fourth Crusade, Pope Innocent III had specifically warned the Crusaders not to attack fellow Christians, yet the Crusade was diverted to sacking cities populated with members of the Crusaders' faith.

This is something that Montfort resisted and when Crusaders sacked the city of Zara on the Adriatic Sea, as opposed to other Frankish lords who were in dept to the Venetians orchestrating the attack, he was one of the most outspoken critics of this action. When the Crusade was diverted to Constantinople, Simon and his followers travelled to the court of King Emeric of Hungary and from there resumed to Acre.

With that being said, as a leader of the Albigensian Crusade, Simon de Montfort crushed the resistance formed by the allies of the Cathars, in what later became Southern France. As the tale goes, during the siege of Béziers, when the Catholic Crusaders asked the abbot Arnaud Amalric how their army could distinguish between Catholics and Cathars, the answer was: "Kill them all, God will know his own".

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