Bram, la circulade des mutilés de 1210

Bram

Seen from the air, Bram is an almost perfect circle: the houses press together in rings around the church, on the plan of the 12th-century castrum. It is this castrum that Simon de Montfort besieged in March 1210, at the end of a winter in which his army had shrunk to a handful of knights. Bram fell in three days. Montfort then had the eyes put out and the noses and upper lips cut off of a hundred or so of the defenders, left one of them half-sighted to guide the others, and sent the column towards Cabaret, where Pierre-Roger de Cabaret and the good men of the Montagne noire were still holding out. Pierre des Vaux-de-Cernay, the crusaders' chronicler, does not hide the fact and excuses it: it is, he says, an answer to the mutilations that the people of Cabaret had inflicted on the crusaders. Terror is a method; it works, and the strongholds of the Lauragais surrendered one after another. None of this is to be seen at Bram, a peaceful village whose circular plan is today its attraction; and it is precisely this plan, laid out in the time of the good men, that one walks.

Wikipédia — Bram ↗

Getting there : On the D 6113 between Carcassonne and Castelnaudary, 20 km from Carcassonne; Bram station (Toulouse-Narbonne line). The centre can be walked in a quarter of an hour: start from the church square and follow the circular streets. The Eburomagus museum (archaeology) is next door.

Opening times and access details are given as a guide only: check before you set out.

Ambient sound