Avignonet-Lauragais et le massacre des inquisiteurs

Avignonet-Lauragais

On the night of 28 to 29 May 1242, the Dominican inquisitor Guillaume Arnaud, his Franciscan colleague Étienne de Saint-Thibéry and their retinue — clerks, a notary, sergeants, eleven people in all — were sleeping in the castle of Avignonet, which belonged to the Count of Toulouse. The local bailiff, Raymond d'Alfaro, had lodged them; it was he who opened the door to a band come down from Montségur under the command of Pierre-Roger de Mirepoix, some sixty men armed with axes. The inquisitors were massacred in their room while singing, one deposition says, the Te Deum; their registers were burnt. Count Raymond VII, who was preparing a revolt against the king, probably let it happen. The result was the opposite of what the Good Men had hoped for: the Church made Guillaume Arnaud a martyr, the king and the seneschal of Carcassonne resolved to have done with Montségur, and the siege began the following year. The church of Notre-Dame-des-Miracles, rebuilt at the end of the 14th century on the crest of the village, saw none of this; its octagonal bell-tower, one of the tallest in the Lauragais, marks the place from afar.

Wikipédia — Massacre d'Avignonet ↗

Getting there : On the N 113 between Villefranche-de-Lauragais and Castelnaudary, 40 km from Toulouse; Avignonet station (Toulouse-Narbonne line) at the foot of the village. The church is open during the day; from the forecourt, a view over the seuil de Naurouze and the wind turbines. Of the count's castle, where the massacre took place, nothing visible remains.

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

Ambient sound