Morten St George Theory

[Morten St. George]

That's confusing. But well, if the tower is a late addition then it certainly can't be the VM castle.

I'm confused by all the above too. I think my latest argument for Cathars was not the VMS depiction of Montsegur but its depiction of Carcassonne:



Here's a another picture of Carcassonne, 1209:



which in turn matches modern photographs.

The Cathar fortress at Montségur was totally destroyed by the crusaders, dismantled stone by stone (looking for the VMS recipes?). The current structure on that mountain has nothing to do with the earlier Cathar fortress.

Unfortunately, the bonfire depiction of Montségur, from a medieval manuscript, does not drop down far enough to show the merlons, but the tower matches what we see in the VMS. Because of its location on top of vertical cliffs, frontal assault was unlikely if not impossible, so they could very well have made merlons of a unique design. Besides Montségur, the last of the Cathars lived in northern Itlay and I believe I discovered that one of their Italian strongholds was close to where we find M-shaped merlons, making if feasible that they introduced the design into Italy to honor those killed in the bonfire. I searched and found no proof that any of the Italian merlons predate the fall of Montségur in 1244.