The castle is one of the "Five Sons of Carcassonne" along with the castles
Quéribus,
Puilaurens,
Termes, and
Aguilar, all situated atop 'unassailable' rocky peaks. It is called 'Celestial Carcassonne' because it is the biggest of the five castles and it is as vast as
Carcassonne. The site was occupied during Roman times from the beginning of the 1st century B.C., as recent archaeological excavations have shown. The first historical references to the castle appeared in 806. It was then Catalan and was called Perapertusès. It belonged to the
Count of Besalú, a small county situated in Catalonia between Figueres and Olot according to a text from 1020. It then passed into the earldom of Barcelona in 1111, and then into the
Viscountcy of Narbonne. From 1180, the
Count of Barcelona (
Alphonse II, who later became the king of Aragon) secured his independence from vassalage to the king of France. The area became a de facto border. At the time of the
Albigensian Crusade, it was the fief of Guillaume de Peyrepertuse who, not wanting to submit, was excommunicated in 1224. He did finally submit after the failure of the siege of Carcassonne in 1240, and the castle became a French possession in the same year. In 1242, Saint-Louis decided to reinforce it and add a second part, the Sant Jordi dungeon, located higher up on the ridge. The Sant Jordi dungeon was then constructed in 1250-51 and the Old Dungeon as well as the Sainte-Marie Church were re-purposed. The situation in the region was unclear until the signing of the
Treaty of Corbeil in 1258, by which
Catalonia was finally liberated from French feudal overlordship. It also fixed the French-Catalan border as just south of Peyrepertuse Castle and therefore it remained in French hands. Like its neighbors, the castles of
Puilaurens and
Queribus, Peyrepertuse was one of the royal fortresses which was reconstructed at the end of the 13th century to defend the border against the
Crown of Aragon and then Spain until the 17th century. In 1355, the castle was restored to its defensive state and
Henry of Trastamare, pretender to the Castillian throne, routed at
Navarette, was authorized by the King of France
Charles V to take refuge there. In 1542, Jean de Graves, lord of
Sérignan, seized the castle in the name of the Reformation, but was captured and executed. The castle was decommissioned as a border point with the
Treaty of the Pyrenees, in 1659 having lost its strategic importance, as the border with Spain was moved some 60 km to the south. Although the citadel was a lot less valuable after the annexation of Roussillon in 1658, a small garrison commanded by a junior officer was maintained until the French Revolution, during which it was abandoned. Sold as a National Property in 1820, its ruins remain today. The first campaign for the preservation of the monument began in 1950. Since 1908, the site has been listed as a
monument historique by the
French Ministry of Culture. ==Visiting the Castle==