Béziers
Béziers is a small city in Languedoc, in the southwest of France. It is a sous-préfecture in the départment of Hérault, with a population around 70,000.
The city is located on a small bluff above the river Orb, about 10km from the Mediterranean.
See also: Canal du Midi
The site has been occupied since pre-historic times. The Romans called it Colonia Julia Septimanorum Baeterrae. Stones from the Roman amphitheatre were used to construct the city wall during the 3rd century.
During the 10th through 12th centuries the Béziers was the center of a viscounty. 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 coming of the Albigensian Crusade.
In 1209, during the early states of the crusade, Béziers was destroyed and all its inhabitants killed. 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.
See also: Septimania
Today Béziers is a principal center of the Languedoc viticulture and winemaking industries.
Béziers was the birthplace of:
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