The first written record of the Roquemaure castle dates from 1209, on eve of the Albigensian Crusade. The castle at the time was controlled by Raymond VI of Toulouse but on being accused by Pope Innocent III of sheltering heretics, he agreed to donate seven castles, including that of Roquemaure ("castrum de Roccamaura"), to the papal legate in Avignon. A document from four years later (1213) mentions a tower and a cistern. The tower is almost certainly the existing Square Tower that dominates the ruins. In 1229 the castle was acquired by the French king, Louis IX, in the Treaty of Paris. There are no surviving 13th century documents that give details on the construction of the castle but it is clear from records of the money spent on maintenance that by the beginning of the 14th century the castle included a curtain wall crowned with a parapet that sheltered a number of houses as well as an oven, a large well, a garden containing a second well, a chapel and prisons.