And incredibly, as it may sound, here is another surprise. Some 32 km northeast of Rennes-le-Château is a very small old village (69 Inhabitants) called Villardebelle.

This toponym is made of two words: “Villar + de Belle”.

By now, we all know that “de Belle” (Flemish) means “de Balliol” (Latin). What the word “Villar” means, I had no clue until I found the word in a dictionary of Medieval Latin. That word means either “Manor” or “Village”.

Is Villardebelle a Manor (small castle) belonging to the Belle or of a village called, for a mysterious reason, “de Belle”? Good electronic translations of Villardebelle give unequivocally: “Un village de Belle” (a village or a manor of the Belle). One cannot be more explicit!

If the word “de Belle” was used in those times instead of the Latin word “de Balliol”, that may have been the result of a clear intention of its inhabitants, out of Flanders, to mark their settlement for the future. Introducing a Flemish toponym in the south of France, instead of a Latin one that may be interpreted quite differently in the far away future, was for them a kind of insurance that someday linguists and/or historians would discover the hidden message. And that may be: We, in Villardebelle, settled here coming “from Belle” (Flanders).

We encounter exactly the same intention of the Bell (De Bel), from Flanders, who lived in Northumberland, north of England, some 1700 km from Villardebelle! The Bell called their family seat “Bellasis”, what is a contraction of “Bell+assise” or “Bell+seat”. Here, like in Villardebelle, the message may have been:  “We, in Bellasis, settled here coming “from Belle” (Flanders).

The locality of Villardebelle (1330 hectares, highest elevation above sea level is 857m and lowest 414m) and/or the manor must have existed at a time the Medieval Latin was still in use. That ranges from the Vth until the XVth century. And that is the case: the church of the village, in Roman Style, was built in the XIIth century. So, the village is at least one thousand years old.

Located west of Villardebelle is another place called Belcastel-et-Buc (from the name of the small River that runs down in the valley). Some 3 km south of this village are the silent and rather mysterious ruins of Belcastel-et-Buc (castle of the Bell) also called “the Castle of Villardebelle” some 12 km away.

Just freed from the morning fog that hung over the mountain in the background, the ruins of the Belcastel-et-Buc (XIth century) rises isolated but majestically on its rocky piton. Corbières (France), some 30 km north-northeast from Rennes-le-Château. Left the chapel and the cemetery still in use in 2012. View taken from the road D429. Coordinates: 43.02965, 2.35397

According to historians the castle, already mentioned in anno 1082 and later in 1221, under the name “castellum pulchrum” (ce qui, par certains signes apparents, promet d'être bon), was known as the castle of Villardebelle. It was built on a hill about 510 m high in an isolated place north of the Corbières, a wild, hot, and dry mountainous area with the highest elevation culminating at 1231 m (Pic du Bugarach). The absence of round towers means the castle is at least 900 years old.

The castle was, together with the castle of Claramunt, on the trade route to Barcelona's, the most important checkpoint in the lower valley of the Llobregat. The bridge over the river is also dated XIIth century BCE.

The dungeon has the typical architecture for Gothic castles built around the year 1000. Walls surrounding the site, are still visible on satellite pictures.

Belcastel-et-Buc is also located in the middle of the Cathars and Templars region. However, and unlike several other nearby castles such as Arques, Termes and the Abbeys of Saint Hilaire and Saint Polycarpe, it seems to have been miraculously and mysteriously spared from the horrible Albigian events, which shook the South of France, starting anno 1209, with the crusade against the Albigians, under Simon de Montfort. Why was this castle spared?

The Middle Age hamlet that surrounded the castle was devastated by a fire and abandoned ever since. The castle and house building stones were used to build the sole house (Villa) of Belcastel-et-Buc down the road west. Left, the much more recent, but almost abandoned, chapel and its graveyard counting a dozen tombs!

* Note: Due to the vagaries of history, the lands, on which the ruins of the castle are located today, were acquired, decades ago, by the family Pages. Correspondence with the owner Madame Pages and with the municipality of Belcastel-et-Buc, through the mayor, Madame Anne Valmigere, has been implemented on 17th Nov. 2019, to buy back these lands. Since Madame Pages passed away, I have been requested to contact one of her sons, Mr François Pages, au Domaine des Candellières, in Belcastel-et-Buc.

Interesting to note is the presence of two particular tombs. One of a Free Mason Mr Victor Serie (*1847 +1874) and one from a Templar Knight: Jean Barbaza (*1817 +1890). It is most unusual indeed to find such tombs in a so far and remote place as Belcastel-et-Buc, in the Corbières!

These tombs give us the indirect proofs that, not far away from Rennes-le-Château, there were, in the region and at the time of Bérenger Saunière, some members of secret organisations active!

For being buried in this Belcastel-et-Buc mini-cemetery, they must have lived in Belcastel-et-Buc or its immediate vicinity. Bérenger Saunière may most probably have received from a Free Mason Lodge, a Templar´s Commandery or a Rosicrucian’s lodge, whose presence are betrayed by these two tombs, some knowledge and maybe even a kind of initiation in some of their secret symbols that he subsequently used to encode his church. Fact is that the church Marie-Madeleine of Rennes-le-Chateau (RLC) is full of Templar, Masonic and Rosicrucian signs. Strange enough to allow us to ask some pertinent questions about this priest! What is sure is that Béranger Saunière is the tree that hides the forest!

I know rather well the region and I can tell you that, except for Belcastel-et-Buc and for Villerouge-Termenès, some 40 km of Belcastel-et-Buc, no one castle has been spared from the destructive craziness of the Church crusaders. An important crusader detachment came from Carcassonne, followed the Aude River valley, and headed for Limoux.

There they turned east towards the Corbières Mountains marching on the nowadays called D129 and D40 (Departmental) roads. From the D129, abreast of the village Belcastel-et-Buc, it was totally impossible not to see the small castle of Belcastel-et-Buc for it is perched high on a mountaintop, as the crop flies less than 700 m from the road and very well visible against the light.

That year, 1209, Simon de Montfort seized the castle of Bertrand de Blanquefort (1109-1169) and gave it, as its surrounding lands, to his comrade in arms Pierre de Voisins. The lands included Rennes-le-Château, where De Voisins found a permanent residence in what is today the Château Hautpoul. However, not a single mention has ever been found in documents, being they old or modern, as far as the Belcastel-et-Buc is concerned.

We know that the bishopric of Alet-les-Bains received the castle of Bertrand de Blanquefort, and that Lord Bertrand swore allegiance to the Viscount Bernard Aton of Alet. Since the castle of the Viscount is practical at an equal distance between Belcastel-et-Buc (19 km) than the Blanchefort´s Castle (15 km), there is no explanation why there is only the mention of the Blanchefort castle and not a single word about the Belcastel-et-Buc! The lords of Belcastel-et-Buc did not swear allegiance to the Viscount otherwise, the fact should have been recorded. Why were they exempt from this usually unavoidable feudal obligation?

Archaeological research would help us to have a good overview of the castle, because nowadays one is only walking over stones of collapsed walls and next to walls that may collapse at every moment. The site is very dangerous and absolutely not a safe place to picnic or to hang around.

«…Le Donjon. Dans la salle principale ou plutôt le bâtiment le plus imposant, je suis en admiration devant l'équilibre des pierres. J'ai l'impression que la ruine ne veut pas mourir et s'accroche au ciel...». Dixit: Le chevalier Dauphinois, publié dans: Châteaux en Languedoc : 11-30-34-48.

“...The Dungeon (also called the Keep). In the main room or rather the most imposing building, I am lost in admiration in front of the equilibrium of stones. I have the impression that the ruin will not die and clings to the sky...”.

The castle seems to have had a particular history, most probably a Dynastic one that may explain why the Belle Dynasty properties and estates remained untouched by the religious events.

The dungeon of the castle may have been, at least 30-35m height. The main building had several floors. This proposition can be deducted by the height of the dungeon and by the construction holes still visible in the walls of the main building.

Something interesting about this castle is the total absence of a defensive system. It was, of course, perched high on a hill, but unlike other early medieval castles, in Belcastel-et-Buc there are no traces of battlements, arrow slits or machicolations. Its curtain walls are surprisingly thin and the size as the multitude of windows, are by no means to ensure an adequate protection to the inhabitants in case of attack.

In the Middle Ages, it was mandatory to keep the horses inside the walls of the castle. I do not know if Belcastel-et-Buc had some stables or not. I am searching for a plan or a drawing from the castle that could tell me more about it.

There is no trace left of neither a well nor wells that would have given some autonomy to the inhabitants in case of a siege. Wells were, of course, dug inside the castle but also in the keep itself. This would enable the besieged to hold longer in the case of falling curtain walls under the enemy siege.

On the site, the debris, several meters thick, are far too important to locate a well. The danger of falling stones and even collapsing walls is far much too real. It would be virtually suicidal to begin excavating the site without having previously secured it by consolidating works.

Question: What was then the real purpose of this castle? Why building a castle that has no defensive capacities, other than the natural protection of its location that limited and rendered the access to the castle rather difficult, and its “thin” walls?

Were they “castellani” (inhabitants) not afraid to be attacked? And if not, what made them so sure?

As said, the castle’s first mention was 1082, what means that it must have existed there for a longer time. Half a century seems a good working hypothesis what brings us back to anno 1030. Going further back in time is very risky because we know that the very early medieval castles, built with stones and rocks, started around that period.

So is anno 1030 extremely close to anno 1014 when the Baron and Knight Bels appeared, undersigning the document of Vacarisses, for the Count Ramon (972-1017) x in 1001, Lady Ermessen de Carcassonne. In those times, Vacarisses together with the Razes region, that included Rennes-le-Château, Villardebelle, Belcastel-et-Buc and Baillessats, were the estates of the Counts of Barcelona.

As the knight Bels was a baron (baronobis) attached, like his heirs and ancestors, to the court of the aforementioned counts, it is not unfounded to suppose that other members of his family also settled in Baillessats, Villardebelle and that some of them were the builders of Belcastel-et-Buc.

The castle, built on a rocky hook high above the brook “le Buc”, could be better defended than the high plateau of Villardebelle. But as seen earlier, the castle had probably no defence capabilities. Any castle building was either designed to control, defend and/or to protect inhabitants. Belcastel-et-Buc was, at least in its early years, an isolated castle with only a few inhabitants around it, with no strategic roads to control and/or to protect. Only centuries later, from the XIVth century onward, did a small locality develop itself at his feet. But by then, its inhabitants had already abandoned the castle.

Is it evident that, although Belcastel-et-Buc is referred as being the castle of Villardebelle, it may have had not very much to do with this village. The castle could never protect the inhabitants of Villardebelle, at the very most the Lord of the castle, in case of danger. The distance between the two locations, some 12 km, was just next door, but still much too substantial in case of an emergency retreat.

Anno 1082 is also relatively close to 1130. It is the year that Bertrand de Blanquefort asked the Knights Templars to start exploiting a gold mine near his castle and some other not far away. In fact, he ordered important underground constructions made by German miners. A big cover-up operation either to dig up, among others, the treasure of the Visigoths which was gathered during the sack of Rome in August, anno 410, by the Visigoth leader Alaric Ist, the Goth, or from the Merovingians. Or was the operation to create new secret underground galleries and chambers? In that case, the German miners were no longer there to dig up something... but most probably to dig something in (sic) !

Where did the miners dig? Was it in the biggest mine of the Corbières (4 stories deep into the mountain) called “Mine Belle Isis”, in the village of Bouisse? Again, we encounter the patronymic “Belle” ! Pure chance one may retort! What then about the fact that this mine is not located some hundred kilometers away from the ruins of Belcastel-et-Buc but only 13 km from it and only 8 km from the village of Villardebelle? Bouisse is the village next door from Villardebelle!

Or were they working in the old mining complex of Camp-sur-l´Agly near the Mount Bugarach, some 20 km from Bertrand de Blanquefort´s castle? Or in caves from the area? If yes, then we are going to lose ourselves into conjectures because there are dozens of caves in the direct vicinity.

Just to quote three of them. One cave in the Bugarach Mountain, the «Bufo Fret», has a big hall some 50m long and 20m high and the length of its galleries reaches almost 6 km. The “Bufo Fret” and the «Font de Dotz» are the two biggest cavities out of 50 that criss-cross the Bugarach Mountain.

The third big cave in the Bugarach is the “Grotte Cathérale” (picture from the Spéléo Club de l´Aude). Another cave, at the Col de St-Louis has, as of today, no less than 20 km of explored galleries! These caves are situated respectively 12 km and 16 km from Bertrand’s castle. Sufficient places to hide several treasures!

The last inhabitants of the Belcastel-et-Buc abandoned it sometimes during the XIVth century. According to historians, the ruins have been inhabited and totally abandoned ever since. Did the last inhabitants belong to the Bels-Belle Lineage or Dynasty?

The small locality that later developed itself, at the feet of the ruins of the castle, burned out totally decennia ago. Most of the stones were used to create the magnificent villa and estates (some 150ha) distant less than 1.000m from the ruins.

The Knight Jim Elton Bell (Ordinis Balliolensis), an excellent historian, quickly reacted after the publication of this article, by his correspondence dated 18 July 2011:

 “... How nice to hear about your new South France findings and possible connections to the Flemish Bels. I admire your ability to piece together new tidbits of data, compare to previously known facts and declare the possibilities. That is the only way to weave possibilities into new history, i.e. even others may pick up on your work and help you prove these as later proven facts.

I have too many associated researcher friends who simply refuse to venture out unless they work with absolute proven facts; hence the reason that few of them ever really discover or contribute anything new... Anyway, your hypothesis is exciting and challenging, and I commend you for continuing the good work that will become so important to our beloved Order...”. Warmest Regards, Brother Jim.

There are four more Belcastel localities in France. All are in the vicinity of Albi! These locations are not necessarily linked to the “Belle” family as Belcastel-et-Buc does.

Question: Belle (Beyle, Bayle, etc.) in Flanders and the others in Languedoc are some 1000 km apart. What was our Lineage doing that far south?

It is known that the Cathars encouraged the establishment of a class of skilled craftsmen. Workshops specialized in the manufacture of textiles and by-products were developed. Moreover, who were the best textile “skilled craftsmen” in those times, but the Flemish?

Ypres was a drapery industry power of the first importance in Middle Age Europe. And it is precisely with this trade that the Bels and Belle were excelling. The astonishing financial fortune they gathered through the centuries came mostly out of the trade and business made with textile.

One of the several mentions about this fact, the records (1250-54-67) of Salomon Belle (+1272) fs. of Jourdain Belle, state: "The gathered notes on Salomon Belle, from Ypres, prove us his wealth and his strength".

It would therefore not be a real surprise if someone would propound the business or commercial hypothesis as a motive behind the settlement of people from our lineages down amidst the Cathars, in south-western France.

In fact, there are some precedents to this sort of skilled artisans’ settlements. Remember the Bels in Limburg (Belgium) dealing with textile in a region that had absolutely nothing to do with it. See “ca. 1492” and in the French part of this Essay under: “Les Belles, Bellis, Bellens sont des Bels”.

There is, however, one stumbling block to this suggestion: Members from our Lineages seem to have settled down in the south of France long before the Cathars! The first reference about the Cathars comes from a letter of the Prior Ebwin von Steinfeld, dated 1145 and addressed to Bernard de Clairvaux. This does not mean that there were no Cathars in the region before this date. But they may have been so few and so insignificant, that they could hardly have been the driving force behind these hypothetical settlements.

The Catharism arose when a priest called Bogomil preached a dualistic form of belief in Bulgaria around 930 CE. The religion itself was born in Persia and was the product of a certain Mani. Paradoxically, the feared contamination ran the opposite direction of the routes taken by the crusades whose intentions were to counteract the “Islamic” contamination (sic).

This infiltration was dangerous for the Roman Catholic Church because, as written by Tim Wallace-Murphy: “…The Gospel of Love, otherwise known as The Secret Gospel of John, taught the simple message that Jesus came to reveal and not to redeem. In this sense, the first identifiable parent of the Cathar faith can be found within the First church in Jerusalem led by James de Just, the brother of Jesus...”.

During my next study trip, I will take more time to visit the village of Villardebelle and try to find out if there has ever been a Manor at this location (as it was the case in Ambels) or if the toponym refers only to the village!

As seen before, Nicole and Alain Bels from Albi told me that the word “Sats” is related to the verb “to know”.

The meaning of the word “Les Baillessats” is thus: “Les Bailles savent” or “The Bailles know”.

• What were the Bailles supposed to know?
• Where did they get the information?
• Why was there such a need to inform the future generations about their “knowledge”?

Due to the extremely short distance (some 30 km) between “Les Baillessats” and “Rennes-le-Château” and its procession of mysteries whose secrets were kept for more than a thousand years, we may speculate if our Lineage knew something about what was going on in Redae, in Rennes-le-Château, with the Merovingian, with the Cathars, with the Templars or with all of them together because they all were interconnected.

All the places our lineages settled in France, and which were named after them, are in the Cathars and Templars region: Albi, Ambels, Ambialet but also, as we will see subsequently Bales, Bayle, Les Bayles, Baillessats, Les Baihards, Montbel, Les Bels, Ambels. They are all located amid the Cathars country such as: Albi, le Bézu, the Château de Blanchefort, the fortress of Peyrepertuse, Rennes-le-Château, the fortress of Montségur, etc.

Our links with the Templar Order, whether on the continent or in England and Scotland, etc., are also firmly established. In addition, our lineage is also linked to some of the most important lineages of the south of France and of the north of Spain such as the one of the Counts of Barcelona, later Kings of Navarre, the Counts of Toulouse and the Counts of Razès, only to quote them!

The small valley south of the elevation (hill) of Rennes-le-Château, in which runs the stream “de Couleurs”, is called “La vallée des Bals” or “The Valley of the Bals”. The chance of finding outside Flanders a toponym linked to our Dynasty or lineage, such as “Bals” - “Bels” - “Bayle”, etc., may be roughly the same as to get the Jackpot on the Lotto (1 upon 100.000.000)! But are we really speaking here of pure mathematical chance, a product of a Cartesian spirit, or from a voluntary intention we still have to discover the reason?

We know that the patronymic “Bals”, together with “Baels” and “Balles”, is a Flemish variant of the name “Bels”. Except for very few occurrences of “Bals” in the south of France, there is no such place in whole continental Europe. It is as if we would encounter, in France, places called after other typical Flemish patronymics such as Beyens, Borrekens, Caloen, Coppens, Festraets, Kerkhove, Mertens, Terlinden, Vantieghem, Verhaeghe, Verwilghen, Vandernoot, etc., and want them to be of French origin!

Apropos, there is a “Vandernoot” married with Castera, buried in a big family vault, in the cemetery of Massat (four kilometers from Les Bels). This Vandernoot, is definitively a Flemish person.

This is also true for places encountered, in northern France, such as: Dunkerque (Duinkerke), Coudequerke (Koudekerke), Morbecque (Moerbeke), Steenbecque (Steenbeek), Haverskerque (Haveskerke), Steenwerck (Steenwerk), Steenvoorde (Steenvoord), Oudezeele (Oudezele), Godewaersvelde (Godsvelde or Godewaarsvelde). Even the more exotic Auderuicq comes from the Flemish Ouderwijk.

Nobody, in the northwestern part of France (Nord - Picardie), will ever doubt on the Flemish origin of these toponyms because this part of France is known to have been usurped from Flanders. In these two French departments, people still speak Flemish, as a second language.

We encounter the same phenomenon in the north-eastern part of France (Lorraine - Alsace). In these regions, most encountered toponyms, are of German origin: Windstein, Drachenbronn (Drachenbrunnen), Surburg (Sauerburg), Steinmauern, Fleckenstein, Wintershouse (Wintershausen), Lichtenberg, Baerentall (Bärentall), etc. And people also still speak German!

However, the situation would be quite different if we encountered typical Flemish or German names in the south of France! These would be, to say the least, quite out of place! Like “a hair in the soup”! How should historians react if they encountered, down there, villages called “Baerentall” or “Steinmauern”? Would they want them to be of French origin?

It is precisely what happens with the Flemish patronymics Bels - Bayles! Of course, there is still the possibility that the word “Bals” is taken, in the south of France, in its Provencal acceptation of the term:

“…Bals (Les) - En Provencal, “baou” signifie “rochers”. D´après Amedée Thierry, ce mot aurait une origine ligurienne. A Villebazy, les Bals forment des escarpements, près de Crausse, ils ont donné leur nom à une Metairie…”: In this case the “La valée des Bals” may designate “the valley of the rocks” ! Source: Bedos Amédée.

Bénédicte et Jean-Jacques Fénie, have not reported a single of these “Flemish” words in their list of Occitan toponyms in the region of the Languedoc speaking. This region encompasses:

• The Aquitaine, South of the Department of the Dordogne, Velines in Sarlat, The Oriental extemity of the Gironde, the plateau and the “serres” de l´Agenais both sides of the valley of the Lot in the Lot et Garonne.
• The Auvergne, District of Aurillac in the Cantal.
• The Languedoc-Roussillon, Aude, West of the Gard d´Ales to Lunel, the Herault and the high Basin of the Agly in the Oriental Pyrennées.
• The Midi-Pyrennée, l´Ariège east of the line Col de Port - le Fossat, l´Aveyron, la Haute-Garonne West from the line Auterive - Toulouse. The Lot, the Tarn and the Tarn et Garonne east of the big Aquitain river.

If the toponyms Bels and Bayles are neither of French nor of Occitan origin, what are they then? It is evident that they are quite out of place!

In fact, there are only three places called “Bels” in France. All three are of Flemish origin and are situated in the south of France. One is designating a small road called “Chemin des Bels” or “Path of the Bels” leading to the locality called “Les Bels”. This locality is some 8 km South from Castres, in the Cathars and Templars region. A very important sign appears right here. The city’s toponym of Castres (43000 inhabitants in 2008) is identical with the one of the Flemish villages called Caestre (1670 Inhabitants in 1999).

As Castres was, in France, in the Templar region, its pendant Caestre happened, by pure chance, to be also in the Templar region but in Flanders. Right in the middle of the first seven Commanderies built in Flanders (around 1128), in the Diocese of Thérouanne. They were in Ypres, Nieuwpoort, Furnes, Caestre, Cassel Steenwerck and Bas-Warneton. Seven others were in the diocese of Tournai: Slijpe, Leffinghe, Steene, Brugge, Ghent, Kortrijk, Pérenchies near Armentières and La Haye in Lomme, next to Lille. Source: E.M Braekman.

Is this not strange to find so many Flemish toponym and patronymics so close to each other, 1000 km away from Flanders. Idem for the blazon of two cities related in Flanders but at first glance totally unrelated in South of France? Left (1) from the city of Tournai (B) and right (2) from Castres (F).

Caestres, in Belgium, belonged to the Balliols of Flanders, who had the well-known Arms with the Pal Vair (3-4-5). The Balliols were also big Lords in Scotland. Why did this Flemish city (6) take the same heraldic elements of the Arms (7) of the Scottish Lords of Barnard Castle, 650 km away, when the Balliols of Flanders, their own Lords (10 km away) had their own?

Did a subtle heraldist want us to realize that the Scottish Balliols, conspiratorially pretended by the French to be of Normandy, were in the past, the Flemish Lords of Balliol (Belle) to whom Caestres (Flanders) depended? How else could we explain all these apparent coincidences?

Back to the “Chemin des Bels”.

The name of the road and of the locality is also quite abnormal. The road should be called “Chemin de Bels” instead of “Chemin des Bels” respectively “Path of Bels” instead of “Path of (to) the Bels” ! The first appellation would mean: “Path leading to a place called Bels” which is the primary purpose of a road sign. The second one would mean: “Path leading to the people called the Bels”.

• “The Bronson Road” is quite different indeed from “The Bronson´s Road” or its genitive pendent
• “The road to (of) the Bronson”! The same is true for the toponym of the locality itself “Bels”: It is, after all, nothing else than the patronymic of a Flemish family!

The other pseudo-toponym I found is the one of a small mountain location (alt 900 m) on the slope of the Pyrenean Mountains, some 4 km northeast of Massat (on the Departmental Road Nr 46). It is called “Les Bels” or “The Bels” (15 houses, only a few permanently inhabited). We have here again the same abnormality as described here above. The name of the locality means “a place where live some people called Bels!”. Compare with an English version as example: “I am driving to Bronson” and “I am driving to the Bronson”. This is quite different!

In addition, but side by side and only separated by some 700 m rough terrain, there is another locality (alt 860 m) named after another Flemish patronymic version of “Bels”, the homonym “Les Bayles” (10 houses). See picture next page. We have seen throughout the previous chapters of this Essay, that both patronymics belong to the same family lineages of Flanders.

That Bayles is a typical Flemish name is also proved by the history of the Bayles in England. As seen “in 1617”: “...The first authentic record of the Bayless, or Bayles family was the appearance of a refugee named John Bayles (Bayley or Baylie), (*1617 in the Parish of St. Peters of Mancrofts in Norwich, Norfolk, England) at Colchester, England.”

John Bayles is said to have come from the Low Countries [Flanders] as a Huguenot who migrated from northern France to escape the death, which overtook so many thousands of Huguenots at the massacre of St. Bartholomew on August 24, 1572. Almost twenty years later, John and two other brothers boarded the “Truelove” and sailed to America they reached on June 10, 1635.

I wrote a CM (Magisterial Communication Nr 490a), dated 29 February 2016, to a Dynast directly concerned: Mr Françis Bels (*1 Oct 1950), mayor of Roquefère and member of the Departmental Council of the Aude (France) whose father is: Roger Bels!

"... Mister mayor, I am the author of an Essay (written in English), on the right track of completion, on the history of the Bels and other homonymous patronymics, distributed in Western Europe. I allow myself to come to you for the following reasons:

The Bels are members of a very old family. Their first tracks take shape at about the year 286. In the Merovingian times, they become "obvious" and eventually “official” due to their publications in official acts such as:

• The Treaty of Verdun (Thionville) in 843.
• The Trial of and in Vacarisses (Catalonia) in 1014, instituted by Guillem de Montcada, Count of Barcelona, against the vicar of Olesa de Monserrat.

My research started in Flanders (Belgium), brought me, among others, in the south of France.

Mister Bels, being of passage in June 2016, in the “Cité” (name given to the ancient part of the City of Carcassonne), it would especially be very pleasant and very instructive to me, to be able to meet you there. Do you glimpse the possibility of such a meeting? Looking forward to the real pleasure to read you and/or to meet you, deign to receive, Mister Bels, mayor of Roquefère, my respectful greetings ".

The Email apparently stranded somewhere on the western slope of the Mount Kailash (Tibet), because I never received an answer! However, on 21 July 2016, I finally made contact. Having Mr Françis Bels personally on the line, I could explain to him what I was looking for. Mr Françis informed me that he would use his long-standing good connections to find out some information pertaining to my research and send me anything that might be of some interest. He himself has no idea how the “Les Bels “and “Les Bayles” toponyms could be explained in the south of France. He will investigate.

On June 17, 2016, wanting to gather some information upon the origin of these names, the year of their first appearance in old documents as well as the number of inhabitants by locality, I drove to the Pyrenean Mountain range to meet Madame Marie-Christine Soula, the mayor of Boussenac, the locality on which the "Les Bels" and the "Les Bayles" hamlets depend administratively. Their respectively coordinates are: 42.907626, 1.367095 and 42.904640, 1.354809

Since these localities are literally lost in time and space, on the other slope of a mountain, I had the very unpleasant and tedious time to zigzag up the road (D618) to the mountain pass, called “Col de Port” (Alt.1.249m), to then zigzagging it down to these places. I was lucky, the weather conditions being good, the pass road was open!

Lady Emmanuelle’s father is Pierre Bels, as is her grandfather’s name. The Lady has absolutely no clue where her ancestors originated from. Further research is in the process.

That Miss Emmanuelle Bels is living, or came back to the area, less than 15 km from the medieval locality of “Les Bels”, is unbelievable. If we compare the chances we would have to find anywhere, outside Flanders, a Miss “Vanmuysen” (Flemish name) living 15 km from a locality called after the Flemish name of “Vanmuysen”, which is next to another locality bearing the Flemish synonym “Van Muijsen”, we would quickly realise that the odds are close to zero!

Meeting with Madame Soula, in her mayor´s office, she told me she had no idea where these toponyms originated from but added that their consonance is definitively not French or from the regional speaking.

As she could not answer my question on the date or time of the toponym´s first apparition, she advised me to contact some historians specialised in this matter. The town hall of Boussenac is not in the Boussenac locality but some 3 km east from it, somewhere on the Départementale D618, south of the “Les Bels” locality, at 42.903831,1.368948

En route to the “Col de Port” there is a locality called “Saurat”, it counts some 580 inhabitants. There lives the dynast Miss Emmanuelle Bels. This, unfortunately, I only found out after my return from my trip to the Pyrenées!

When my maternal grandfather, Charles-Alphonse Valcke died, March 28, 1974, an announcement of death was printed and distributed. On this announcement, although printed in a Flemish village, by Flemish personal used to deal with Flemish names, the typical spelling error happened once again. The couple Robert Gérard Bels x Suzanne Valcke, my parents, was named “Beyls-Valcke” instead of “Bels-Valcke” !

Our Dynast Willy Bels wrote me: “…for your information. In the Ypres´s loan registers one Jonkvrouw, wife of Rycquart (Ryckewaert) Van der Gracht, appears under the following names, sometimes as Marie Belle, then Marie Belles and also as Marie Bels. It should be noted that each time it is the same lady. About the spelling of the name, there was little or no concern at the time…”. Source: Willy Bels, out of Leenregister van de Zaal van Ieper (1514-1515) Johan Beun anno 2001.

If such mistakes could happen in modern times and in a country where more than 99% of the people are literate, then we better understand why so many patronymics variants appeared in the Middle Ages. In those times, the spelling of a name being only phonetic, the name Bels became indistinctly Beils, Beyls, Bells, Belles, Bellis, Belis, Bailes, Bailles, Bails, Bayls, Baillies, etc. Simply because they all sounded exactly the same!

Therefore, among other particularity of this very hard to study language, French students have so many problems with the spelling. As an example, the sound of the word “vair” can be written, in French, in different ways and will mean every time something else: vers = toward(s), vers = line (poetry), vert = green, verre = glass, vereux = corrupt, ver = worm, vair = vair (slipper), vair = fur (heraldry) and pronounced a little bit too hard will become Fer = iron, Faire = to do !

If somebody tells us, he is living in a place that sounds like “Vair”, how are we going to write it down? If I tell you my name, which sounds like “Bails”, how are you going to write it down?

If the correct spelling was already a big problem in Flanders, there where these synonyms originated from, then we can realise how big the spelling confusing must have been in a place like the South of France? In addition to that, writing down these names, in their correct spellings, must have been a challenge in those times when only a very small fraction of the population was literate.

Outside the monks, the clergy, the Leudes and later the Vassi officers (Lawman, Office holders, Magistrates, etc.), nobody could read nor write. The literacy rate in England, in the XIIIth century, has been evaluated as low as 6% and this percentage did not change significantly until about the beginning of the XVth century.

On the other hand, due to the great use of reading and writing by the urban bourgeoisie, followed much later by the gentry and nobility, Flanders and northern Italy had, as for culture, arts and science developments, the highest rate of literacy in Europe.

If Flemish people have problems spelling those names, what for an insurmountable task it may have been represented for French people, known for their kind of “genetic” resistance to learn foreign languages, and once learned, to master them!

Here at the foothills of the Pyrenées, in extremely isolated areas, Flemish patronymics were given to neighbour localities, moreover, in the Cathars and Templars terrains, at least some 1.000 km away from Flanders! Is this not another coincidence?

And it still goes on. Twelve kilometers south of Castelnau Durban and some 6,5 km as the crow flies north of “Les Bels” is another locality (13 houses) named after another Flemish patronymic variant and homonym for Bels, called “Bales”.

All these above-mentioned places are in the hottest part of the Cathars country and are never further away than 34 km, linear distance, from their famous fortress of Montségur!

The village of “Carla-le-Comte” does not exist anymore. It has been renamed “Carla-Bayle” in the honour of our dynast Pierre Bayle. It is located 25 km west of the city of Pamiers, in the Comté de Foix. Pierre Bayle (1647-1706), the famous philosopher, writer and forerunner of the Encyclopaedists and an advocate of the principle of the toleration of divergent beliefs, was born in Carla-le-Comte.

He was one of the most important professors of history and philosophy of the last centuries. Of Cathar blood, he has not forgotten the inquisition that struck his family four centuries earlier. So, as soon as the opportunity arose, he broke with the Roman Catholic Church and cautiously opted for the nascent Protestantism. In 1681, he took refuge in the Netherlands where he held the chair of a professor of history and philosophy at the illustrious Rotterdam school.

Other small villages called “Bayle” are in the region: one counting some 20 houses is located some 10 km West of Pamiers, one counting 27 houses is located some 15 km southeast of Pamiers and one hamlet counting nine houses is located some 14 km east of Pamiers. All are less than 20 km as the crow flies from the Cathars fortress of Montségur. “Cazals des Bayles” counting 28 houses, is located some 43 km west of the ruins of our castle remnants in Belcastel-et-Buc!

There are a few other “Les Bayles” in France, such as the one in the Ardèche at coordinates: 44.726638, 4.656277 The medieval hamlet of Boussan is also called “Les Bayles”. With only a few houses, it is located at coordinates: 43.239831, 0.891592 

I have no idea how these places got their names and haven't paid much attention to them, being too far from the Epicentre of the Bels at the foothills of the Pyerenees. But it is highly probable that the “Bayls” of Flanders also settled there.

Studying the area between Boussenac and Massat in more detail, I spotted another hamlet on the other side of the mountain, also named after one of our Flanders lineages. It's called “Balès”, one of the “Bels” phonetic variants in Belgian’s Limbourg Flanders.

If one starts from “Les Bels” or “Les Bayles”, already at some 950 m altitude and climb the mountain’s south slope to the top at 1440 m high, one arrives on its northern slope, where one will find down below, at an altitude of some 840 m, the small place called “Balès”, counting just a few houses. Note that the distance between “Les Bels” and “Les Bayles” and “Balès” is exactly 6 km, as the crow flies over the top of the mountain. Coordinates are: 42.961886, 1.350287

And then there's the mountain pass known as "Port de Balès", at an altitude of 1755 m, in a landscape of magnificent desolation. What does this passage have to do with the "Balès»?

At 50 km south of the town of Albi, and 2 km east of the church of Viviers-lès-Montagnes, once the center of the village or hamlet, there's a little road called “Chemin des Bels”. This name obviously derives from our Flemish lineage “Bels”, as do those of the hamlets of “Les Bels” and “Les Bayles”, and of “Ambels” just 55 km southwest from “Les Bels II”. (I identify this new location with a roman [II] identifier, to differentiate it with the "Les Bels" from the region of Boussenac).

This little road is no stranger to mystery. It surrounds a very old place called "Les Bels II”, that has no church, no chapel and counts only some 125 inhabitants in 2024. Coordinates: 43.555012, 2.205990

The "Chemin des Bels" is the continuation of 'Chemin des Fontaines'. It takes then a fork-shaped extension and becomes the "Chemin de la Pierre plantée" and then, after leaving the locality to the east, the “chemin” climbs to the left and becomes the "Chemin du secret" who lead - nowhere!

So is the “Les Bels II”, as are some other Bels lineages called places, also linked to a secret and a coded sentence. The chemin “de la Pierre plantée” means “a planted stone”. This has no logic meaning. You can plant a tree, but not a stone! What, then, does this phrase mean and why is the path that follows it, called the “secret path”?

In order to understand these mysteries, we need to go back a long way in time and ask ourselves the question: what could there possibly be in these places, or what did the inhabitants of these places know that could have motivated or necessitated the depositing of such messages, and for whom were they intended?

We can continue asking such questions: What means the carved “1465” message on the stone hidden in the wall of a house belonging to “Les Bailesatz”, which also means “The Bailes know". What do they know, or what did they know?

What is the significance of adding the word “Buc” to the place name of Belcastel? Is it to remind future generations that the people who settled there had a connection with the forester Lyderic le Buc, who lived during the reign of Dagobert I, the ancestor of the initial Count of Flanders?

If seems, the “Buc” would attest the Flanders connection of the inhabitants of Belcastel. In the process, it would also show that Flanders is the origin of other Flemish toponyms and names found in specific areas of south-west France. Areas where the Cathars and Templars were at home.

A fundamental aspect of the names of places and people is something I would like to emphasize without going overboard. It is essential to understand this phenomenon in order to elucidate the presence of these atypical names in this particular region of Southern France.

There is quite evidently nothing surprising about encountering the names of “Martin” or “Dubois”, in France. But if we encounter strange names that appear out of nowhere and that are totally out of place, then questions must be posed.

There is no need to have done Harvard or Oxford to quickly realize that names, such as “Müller” and “Schneider”, are German. That “Rossi” and “Romano” are Italian, that “García” and "Rodriguez" are Spanish, that "Brown" and "Williams" are English, that “Ivanov" and "Smirnov" are Russian, are totally exotic to the Hexagone. The list of names totally foreign to the language of the countries in which they appear is inexhaustible.

Many Flemish names were Frenchized after the annexation of part of Flanders by France in the 17th Century. The «Vandevelde» became «de la Pasture». «Zoeterstede» became «Le Doulieu». «Rijsel-Lille». «Belle-Bailleul», and «Boonen-Boulognes». Linguists and Polyglots will almost instantly make the links, others will not.

Some other names have retained their Flemish origins but have been slightly Frenchized: «Duinkerke (meaning - the church in the dunes) is now Dunkerque». «Ekelsbeke (Ekel stream)-Esquelbecq», «Valensijn-Valenciennes». «Torkonje-Tourcoing», etc.

I contacted Mr. Jacques Montagné through my Personal Communication No. 191 dated September 10, 2024. The person who lives in Viviers-lès-Montagnes responded to my request for information in the following terms:

“I'm a simple Vivierois who loves his village, is interested in it, and marvels at the past of what our ancestors built and which we are struggling to maintain! The hamlet of Les Bels has existed for a very long time, and in the old days was inhabited mainly by farmers who worked the land around it, some ten families”. Source: Email dated 12 Sept 2024 - 21:28 GMT.

It was agreed that any new information would be passed on to me.

Since our family names have nothing to do with the French language, I turned to the vocabulary of the medieval lingua franca, Occitan. The word “Bels” is found there as a masculine noun meaning “the pipe, the conduit” or, according to M. Montagné, the tree in the expression “Lou Bels”. All of which gives no meaning to the villages encountered.

Other words such as “Bayles” and “Bales” don't exist. Buc meant either a “beehive”’, “brachium sine manu” (an arm without a hand), “mountain peak” or “thorny undergrowth”.

These meanings cannot be attributed to Lyderic le Buc, from Flanders. There are no “mountain peaks” in the vast, flat plains of Flanders, and even fewer “thorn trees”, specific to the south of France, and Lyderic didn't have “an arm without a hand”. As for the "beehive" my goodness! But then, you'd have to be really short of ideas to include such an object in your surname.

As you've already realized throughout this Essay, I don't seek or create mysteries where there are none. I only observe, surprise myself (sic) and simply mention the facts. These facts are the ones that present themselves as “strange” - “questioning” - “defying all logic” and often or even surrounded by “secrets”.

It's up to us to take an inquisitive look at them, because it's certain that behind all these “coincidences”, lie messages destined for future generations. It is up to us, to unravel their mysteries.

As we can see, all these places named after Flemish surnames are relatively centralized and not far apart. The longest distance measured for the establishment of the Bels in the south of France is to the north, Ambels, the Lordship of Frater Heiko Bels, and to the south, Ax-les-Thermes, where our dynasts Sybille and Pons Bailes were burned by the holy Roman Catholic Church during its murderous crusade against the Cathars. That's 140 km straight line.

There is, however, an exception for the Bels held for their duties at the court of the Counts of Barcelona (later the royal court of Aragon). The distance between Ax-les-Thermes and CastelbelI i el Vilar is 150 km.

A few other localities, hamlets or small villages of the same name can be found in France but, being not in the immediate region I am dealing, I do not spend much time describing them! Were all these localities and hamlets, with patronymic variants, named by their occupants who settled there at the time of the Merovingians, the Carolingians, the Count of Barcelona, the crusade against the Cathars, the Templars adventures and of the Rennes-le-Château events? Or did someone else called the localities after the families who settled there, as for the case of Carla-Bayle?

The definition of a locality (Lieu-dit in French) is: “A place which, in the countryside, bears a name reminding a topographic or historic peculiarity and often constitutes a gap from a municipality”. Source: Larousse Dictionnaire de Français. (2015).

For any observer who went to these remote and isolated places, it is clear that their topographic or historical peculiarities equal the absolute zero! There is then only one option left: These places were not called after these criteria but after the patronymic of an important lineage who lived there!

In Spanish, the letter “a” from “Bales” sounds like “a” in “Alpha”. If the place was named “Belles”, the letter “e” would have sounded like “e” in “Echo”. On the other hand, spelling the word “Baills” will have it sounding differently and exactly the same as Bels, Belles, Baels in Flanders and Bayles, Bailles, the word we encountered in the south of France, in the composition “Les Baille-sats” - “The Baille know”.

Why be so precise in trying to describe the phonetic characteristic of this word? What was the intention behind it? What was the underlying message that can only be decrypted by linguists and other gifted researchers? We can draw here a parallel with the words “Bels” and “van Belle” in Flanders and its identical grammatical rules (two aspects of applying the Genitive form of ancient German). A parallel proved with the aid of heraldry (identical blazon). Here also, only specialists could discover the link.

Is this not another incredible coincidence? As said earlier in my Essay, I do not try to make facts to suit my theory but my theory to fit “strange facts” and “unusual coincidences”!

How must I face them? What an attitude should I take? I have only three options: Writing about them, forgetting all about them or applying the ”Conspiracy of Silence”. The latest was already well applied in the Middle Ages, as we can read hereunder the text of Mr Comies (XVth century), the first philosophic historian:

Tout regarder, et faindre riens de veoir ;

Watch everything but pretends to see nothing.

Tout escouter, monstrant riens ne sçavoir ;

Listen everything, show knowing nothing.

Mot ne sonner des cas qu´on sçait et voit ;

Say no word from cases one knows and sees. 

What is underlying all these “coincidences” I keep encountering the more I deepen the research for my Essay?

Why can we not find our Lineage settlements anywhere else in Europe? For example: Bailleul in Poland instead of in Flanders and Normandy - Ambels in Austria - Vacarisses in Hungary - Baillessats in the Netherlands - Villardebelle in Denmark - Belle in the Czech Republic - L’orme in Portugal - Fleminglandi in Italy - the Bales Valley in Germany - Castellbell in Ukraine - Belcastel-et-Buc in Finland - Bellasis in Switzerland - Bayle in Romania - Bels in Bulgaria, etc.?

On the contrary, all these patronymic toponyms are exactly situated at historical locations where we, together with Templars, Benedictine Monks, and other key figures of the time, were active for centuries, if not more than a millennium. This is absolutely not a curious coincidence!

What is the statistical meaning of all these places called after Flemish names? I am not a mathematician and will never be able to find it out. However, normative logic gives already an answer.

If one takes the specific names appearing in France and focus on their occurrences individually, we may have the impression that there is nothing special or unusual going on there. However, the correct way to analyse the problem is to look at all the names together.

Quoting Prof. Andrey Feuerverger of the Dept. of Mathematics and Statistics at the University of Toronto (Canada):

“...If we were on a crowded street in ancient Jerusalem and called out the name Jesus, 45% of the man would probably answer. If we call Mary, 25% of the women would probably respond. They were both common names! But, if we would call out for a Jesus with a father called Joseph, a mother named Mary and a brother called Jose, the odds that such an individual will respond are quite low. From a statistical point of view, we do not look at the incidence of individuals names, we look at how the factors combine with each other. So sure, a father by the name Joseph is not a rare name, a son by the name of Joshua is not a rare name, but if you combine those two together, it is rarer...”.

This is exactly how we must proceed with the occurrences, in France, of the places called: “Les Bels - Les Bayles - Bailes - Belle, etc.”.

There were in France, as of January 2016, some 35.885 municipalities distributed in 101 French departments. No one single “Bels” or variant could be found! Source: I.N.S.E.E.

Considering that each municipality administrates several villages, hamlets and localities, we may end for the whole Hexagon (France) to an approximate number of 205.000 toponyms. Yet, in the multitude, we only encounter seven hits: 2 for “Les Bels” - 2 for “Bels” and 3 for “Les Bayles”. Seven hits upon 205.000 indicate us not only that these words are extremely rare in France (some 0,003%) but also that they do not originate from that country!

There are also composite words including the patronymics such as Bailles-sats, Baille-stavy, Am-bels, Villar-debelle, Castelbel i el Vilar, etc.

Looking for these places on a map, we quickly realise that their distributions are not at all at random, as it should statistically be the case. Instead, we find them all confined in southern France and predominantly in what used to be the ancient Cathars and Templars region.

The case of “Les Bels” and “Les Bayles”, is quite unique. Here we have two localities called after Flemish patronymics, which are separated by only 700 m distance!

Another Flemish substantive, used in France, as toponym, is “Les Baihards”. As we have seen it, it is also located in the Cathars´ and Templars´ region!

It gets even more interesting. At coordinates 42.88975, 1.39890, some 2 km in a bee line (10 km by road, around the mountain), south-southeast of Boutenac (the village on which the two hamlets of “Les Bels” and “Bayles” depend), there's a hamlet called “Liers”.

This seemingly innocuous toponym has more than one trick up its sleeve.

1. The toponym “Liers” exists only twice in the world. Once in France and once in Belgium (Juprelle).
2. This “Liers” is a phonetic variant, synonymous with “Leers”.
3. This French “Liers” is in the same area as “Les Bels”, “Les Bayles” and “Balès”. It is respectively only 2 km and 9 km away in a straight line.
4. There is only one “Leers” in the world, in Belgium and France (sic).
5. There's a village called “Leers” on the Belgian-France border. This village was Flemish before it was annexed by France.
6. The two “Leers” are thus one and the same village, split in two after the annexation of part of Flanders by France. To appease inhabitants’ sensitivities, it was decided to keep the same toponym for both villages. The part of the village located in France is called “Leers France” or simply “Leers”. The part of the village in the Flanders of yesteryear is called “Leers-Nord” or, nowadays, “Estaimpuis”, due to its merger with this Belgian commune.
7. Since the establishment of the Bels-Belle in the South of France, was at least 1000 years prior to the annexation of the “Leers” in Flanders, by France, the village's toponym "Leers" is therefore Flemish.
8. As in the case of “Belcastel et Buc”, the stream that flows at the foot of the village of “Liers” has also been named after the village. It is called “Ruisseau de Liers”.

As fate would have it, here comes a new and very surprising element of the puzzle.

I was born in 1946, in the village of “Leers-Nord”. Carrying the surname “Bels” and being born in “Leers-Nord” means that, if I were to move to the village of “Les Bels”, in the South of France, I would never live more than 2 km as the crow flies from the village that bears the name “Leers”, where I was born, but some 900 km straight line, from south of Flanders (sic)!

The “Belcastel et Buc”, “Villardebelle” and “Castellbell i el Vilar” cases are therefore not isolated, and the recurrence of similarities eliminates any desire to categorize them as the mere product of chance.

One last word concerning these Flemish localities near Boussenac. On January 2017, I contacted the Dynaste, Willy Bels, from Leopoldsburg (Limburg. Belgium), I had lost sight of for almost 20 years. Willy is, as were his ancestors, attached to the Bels of Flanders through the big branch of the Bels from Limburg (see blazon 2k).

I was really surprised to learn that Willy knew about these “Les Bels” and “Les Bayles” localities and that he even went to these spots, decades ago! Prior to his trip and to learn more about these two Flemish named localities, he wrote to the mayor requesting some information, to never receive a reply!

Nonetheless, despite Willy's unique encounter situated at approximately 1000 kilometers from Flanders, which presented a challenge comparable to mine, he did not think to disclose this information to me. He should have known far better because he was aware of my extensive historical research. C’est la vie !

Willy transmitted me, mid of the 1980´s, some genealogical data on the branch of Brustem. He participated, together with his uncle Romain Bels, to a conference I hold jointly with Fra. Ignace Bailleul, our Knight from Roeselare, sometime in the early 1990´s, in the Flemish city of Kortrijk. The conference gathered Dynasts from several patronymics such as Bels, de Bels, Belle, Vanbelle, Bailleul, etc.

It is, however, possible that Willy spoke to me about these places, and that I simply forgot all of it. I would not be surprised if this was the case. Whatever, Willy Bels went, driven by historical curiosity, to another place called “Belz”.

This is a small town in the Morbihan department, in Brittany (N.W. France). Here also, as for “Les Bels” in South of France, we find less than a 20 km distance from this place, some Belz Families.

Roland Belz, for example, is living in Pluneret, west of Vannes (France) and only 20 km away from the village “Belz”, called after his patronymic.

The presence of the Bels and Bayles of the South of France could be traced, as we have seen, through the happenings at the Merovingian’s Court, Carolingian’s Court, Counts of Barcelona’s Court, and through the history of the Cathars and Templars. However, what brought the Bels Lineage to this remote western part of France, of Morbihan, far away from the classical theatre of operations I just enumerated, cannot be explained, and constitute a new mystery I