Béziers (Besièrs in Occitan, and Besiers in Catalan) is a town in Languedoc, in the southwest of France. It is a commune and a sous-préfecture in the Hérault département, with a population around 70,000, called Biterrois.

Geography

The town is located on a small bluff above the river Orb, about 10km from the Mediterranean Sea. At Béziers the Canal du Midi spans the river Orb as an aqueduct called the pont-canal ('canal bridge').

History

The site has been occupied since Neolithic times, before the influx of Celts. Roman Betarra was on the road that linked Provence with Iberia. The Romans refounded the city as a new colonia for veterans in 36/35 BCE and called it Colonia Julia Baeterrae Septimanorum. Stones from the Roman amphitheatre were used to construct the city wall during the 3rd century.

White wine was exported to Rome; two dolia discovered in an excavation near Rome are marked, one "I am a wine from Baeterrae and I am five years old," the other simply "white wine of Baeterrae".

During the 10th through 12th centuries Béziers was the center of a Viscountship of Béziers. The viscounts ruled most of the coastal plain around the city, including also the city of Agde. They also controlled the major east-west route through Languedoc, roughly following the old Roman Via Domitia, with the two key bridges over the Orb at Béziers and over the Hérault at Saint-Thibéry.

After the death of viscount William around 990, the viscounty passed to his daughter Garsendis and her husband, count Raimond-Roger of Carcassonne (d. ~1012). It was then ruled by their son Peter-Raimond (d. ~1060) and his son Roger (d. 1067), both of whom were also count of Carcassonne.

Roger died without children and Béziers passed to his sister Ermengard and her husband Raimond-Bertrand Trencavel. The Trencavels were to rule for the next 142 years, until the War against the Cathars - a formal Crusade authorised by Pope Innocent III.

Beziers was a Languedoc stronghold of the Cathars, whom Catholics considered heretics and whom Catholic forces exterminated in the War against the Cathars. Béziers was the first city to be sacked, on July 22, 1209, burning the cathedral of Saint Nazaire, which collapsed on the terrified inhabitants who had taken refuge inside. Béziers was then destroyed and its surviving inhabitants slaughtered.

The commander of the crusade, was the Papal Legate Arnaud-Amaury (or Arnald Amalaricus, Abbot of Citeaux). When asked by a Crusader how they should they treat the inhabitants of the city after they had captured it (because not everybody in the city was a Cathar -- most of them were Catholics), the abbot famously replied, "Kill them all, God will recognize His own" / "Neca ecos omnes. Deus suos agnoscet." It was later, after the fall of Carcassonne, that Simon de Montfort, 5th Earl of Leicester was appointed to lead the Crusade.

A few parts of the Romanesque cathedral St-Nazaire survived, and it was restored, along with the rest of the city, during the 13th through 15th centuries.

Ecclesiastical history

Local traditions assign as the first Bishop of Béziers the Egyptian saint, Aphrodisius, said to have sheltered the Holy Family at Hermopolis and to have become a Christian, also said to have accompanied Sergius Paulus to Gaul to found the Church of Narbonne. He allegedly died a martyr at Béziers.

Local traditions had St. Aphrodisius arrive at Béziers mounted on a camel. Hence the custom of leading a camel in the procession at Béziers on the feast of the saint; this lasted until the Revolution.

The first historically known bishop is Paulinus mentioned in 418; St. Guiraud was Bishop of Béziers from 1121 to 1123; St. Dominic refused the episcopal see of Béziers in order to devote himself to supporting the extermination of the Cathars.

Among the fifteen synods held at Béziers was that of 356 held by Saturninus of Arles, an Arian archbishop which condemned St. Hilary. Later synods of 1233, 1246 and 1255 condemned the Cathars.

A Brief of 16 June, 1877, authorized the bishops of Montpellier to call themselves bishops of Montpellier, Béziers, Agde, Lodève and Saint-Pons, in memory of the different dioceses united in the present Diocese of Montpellier.

Economy

Today Béziers is a principal center of the Languedoc viticulture and winemaking industries.

Transportation

The A75 autoroute passes through Béziers.

Miscellaneous

Modern Béziers fields a rugby union team (AS Béziers) with twelve championships to their credit.

The Béziers Feria offers five days of festivity in the summer.

Béziers also hosts annual Languedocienne Sea-Joustes in the summer.

Births

Béziers was the birthplace of:
* Pierre Paul Riquet (1609 or 1604-1680), engineer and canal-builder responsible for the construction of the Canal du Midi
* Paul Pellisson (1624-1693), author
* Jean Barbeyrac (1674?-1744), jurist
* Jean-Jacques d'Ortous de Mairan (1678–1771), geophysicist.
* Jean Antoine Ernest Constans (1833-1913), statesman
* Jean Moulin (1899-1943), a hero of the French Resistance in World War II
* Edgar Faure (1908-1988), French statesman
* Alexandra Rosenfeld, Miss France 2006
Beziers is twinned with Stockport, a town in north west england

Cultural references

*The book "Labyrinth" by Kate Mosse, a work of fiction, draws on the history of Carcassonne, Béziers and the Cathars.

Twin towns

* Chiclana, Spain, since 1993
* Heilbronn, Germany, since 1965
* Stavropol, Russia, since 1982
* Stockport, England, since 1972

See also

Sources and External links

*
*Official website city of Beziers.
*The town of Béziers and events in Béziers during the Crusade against the Cathars
*Visiting the city of Béziers (In English)
*Sea Jousting (Joutes Nautiques)

Category:Communes of Hérault