Morten St George Theory

[Linda]

Linda, Thanks to Paris' decoding of the red ink, we now know that the illustration cannot be depicting what is said to be depicted. Possibly not having a drawing of the 1210 burning available, they decided to substitute a drawing of the Montségur burning instead.

I figured you would say something like that, about it still being Montsegur in your eyes. I suppose you could put together a hypothesis like you outlined above about the illustration actually being about Montsegur due to it being closer in time to the creation of the St Denis manuscript than the earlier events, but i think your theory would stand stronger without it, especially since it was in a subsequent edition, it was not a photograph, and there was not enough of any building or landscape showing to identify it confidently.  You can still have the vms castle being identified as an imagined Montsegur, given the timing difference between the events and the creation of the vms, that is more believable to me than a comparison to a tower top illustration with all the problems that brings into it.

You are now armed with more knowledge to further shape your theory into a stronger one. You havent lost anything, anything that seems like loss was never there, and was actually a loose stone in the foundation of your theory.

Stay warm on your trip into the cold.