Crusade Against the Grail - Rennes-le-Chateau Research and ...

MUNTSALVAESCHE AND MONTSEGUR 105
Was the Grail Mountain a Venus mountain? Didn't this contradict the Grail
circle's precept of chastity?
In its service knights and squires must guard against licentiousness: A noble
brptherood lives there, who by force of arms have warded
off men from every land. Only one man ever came there without
first having been assigned. He had not reached years of discretion.
WOLFRAM VON ESCHENBACH
To better understand this contradiction, we should have another look at the
poem of Peire Vidal, in which the troubadour pretends to have found the God-
Amor in person. At the side of Amor rides a lady. Venus? No, Grace! The leys
d'amors prohibited simple love, carnal love.
The troubadours found solace in the grace of their ladies, and the Cathars
aspired to a consoling Mani—the help. A feminine principle with purpose. But the
chroniclers we just quoted were right when they saw in the Grail Mountain a
mountain of Venus, sinning and heretical.
In remote times, Montsegur was a sanctuary dedicated to the Goddess
Belissena, the Astarte-Artemis-Diana of the Celt Iberians. Astarte was the Paredra
de Baal in Phoenician theogony; Artemis, the sister of Apollo in Greek mythology;
and Belissena, the wife of Abellio, in the Celt Iberian cosmos of divinities.
In the sanctuary of the divine twins Castor and Pollux in Delphi and Didyma,
as in all the important spots where Apollo was worshipped, temples were
consecrated to Artemis. Her priests and priestesses had to take an oath of chastity.
A small troop of nymphs accompanied the inaccessible goddess in her hunts in the
woods. Her symbol was the half moon.
For their part, the Druids had their own sanctuaries dedicated to Belissena in
places that were consecrated to Abellio. Not far from present-day Mirepoix—
whose lords, the Sons of Belissena, wore the tower, the fish, and a half moon on
their coat of arms—is the sacred forest of Belena. Present-day Belesta, just a few
hours from the path to Montsegur, was consecrated to Belissena. A sanctuary
dedicated to Belissena has been found close to another dedicated to Abellio in
Lavelanet, at the foot of the promontory of Montsegur, where Ramon de Perelha, a
Son of Belissena, commanded the fortress.