Château de Niort-de-Sault

En un regard

Le château en bref

Perched on a twin-pinnacled rocky outcrop overlooking the deep, narrow valley of the Rébenty, the Château de Niort-de-Sault — called Aniort or Aniorti in medieval texts — was the seat of a powerful and ambiguous lineage, by turns allied with the crusaders and protector of Cathar parfaits. Its fall in the summer of 1255, only a few months after that of Quéribus, symbolically marks one of the very last acts of Occitan resistance in the Pyrenees of the Aude. Now reduced to sections of wall overgrown with vegetation, the site preserves a rare vestige: a Cathar cross carved directly into the ground, on the presumed site of the vanished keep. Isolated and off the tourist trail, this little-known castle remains one of the most authentic places of Cathar memory in the Aude.