The treasure of Montesegur - Walter Birks

On 16 March, 1244 more than 200 Cathar "perfects", heretics in the eyes of the Catholic Church were taken from the castle of Montsegur in the foothills of the Pyranees and burned alive in the fields below. But they went to the deaths willingly, knowing that their ultimate secret - the treaure of Montesegur was safe, smuggled out of the castle by four of their number.;For 700 years the Cathars' secret resisted all attempts to unravel it and fuelled bizarre speculations of occultists and neo-Cathars. Now, as a result of painstaking scholarly analysis, the true nature of the treasure of Montsegur is revealed and the significance of the Cathars themselves in the development of western thought is made clear.;A new perspective is given here on the history of the Cathars, their religious beliefs and their secret - the treasure of Montsegur. As much a detective story as a work of scholarship, it strips away the accretions of ignorance and misconceptions to reveal the simple truth.