Between the Fourth and Fifth Crusades there occurred a lesser known but important Crusade. The Albigensian Crusade, launched in 1209, was mounted to eliminate the heretical Christian Cathars of Occitania in the south of what is now modern-day France. It was a decades-long struggle to extirpate both the Cathars and the independence of southern France. Prior to the fall of Montsegur, the last bastion of the Cathars, on the 12th of March 1244, legend has it that Cathar treasure was spirited away from Montsegur. Was it gold, religious artifacts, or perhaps ancient documents of great significance to the Catholic Church? The physical efforts required in surreptitiously removing treasure from Montsegur, the mountain top fortress, during a siege by the Popes army, dictates documents! Questions scream from the corridors of time: What documents prompted a Crusade of Christians against Christians? Who wrote them? What revelations do they contain? What happened to them? And, why and by what means is the Roman Church now attempting to find the parchments? How and why does the trail lead from the Middle East to the Languedoc region of France, to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, to Oxford University in Great Britain, and finally to Rome where the documents are found in the Vaticans secret archives and translated. Executions of crimes including murder are revealed. Plans for additional murders are revealed and foiled. A plan to stop the probable distribution of the translated documents, if carried out successfully, will change everything.
