Béziers is a French commune located in the Hérault department in
the Occitanie region, crossed by the Orb and surrounded by vineyards
and the nearby Mediterranean. It could be the oldest city in France,
before Marseille: multiple archaeological excavations undertaken
since the 1980s have revealed that Béziers was built by the Greeks
in the 7th century BC.
With 77,177 inhabitants in 2017,
Béziers is the second municipality in Hérault after Montpellier and
fifth in Occitanie. Its urban area has 171,010 inhabitants, ranking
53rd nationally. Its inhabitants are called the Biterrois and
Biterroises, from Baeterrae, the Latin name for the city.
The contemporary fame of Béziers is made through
viticulture, its rugby union team or its feria, which takes place
every summer around August 15.
Béziers is a member of the
Union of French bullfighting towns, in particular as Arles, Bayonne,
Dax or Mont-de-Marsan.
Old bridge of Béziers
The Pont Vieux is a listed structure
located in Béziers, in the Hérault department. Characteristic of
Romanesque architecture (12th century), it allows the crossing of
the Orb. It remained for a very long time the only crossing point of
the Orb on the way from Provence to Toulouse. It has undergone
changes at different times: fourteenth century, fifteenth century,
sixteenth century.
In letters patent to the Consuls of
Béziers, Charles VII and Louis XI spoke of a bridge "of great age,
sumptuous and of great edifice".
Saint-Nazaire Cathedral
in Béziers
Saint-Nazaire et Saint-Celse Cathedral is a
Gothic-style church located in Béziers in the French department of
Herault and the Occitanie region. The cathedral is built in the
western part of the old medieval town, on a large promontory which
dominates the Orb plain at the same level as the Lycée Henri-IV
(Béziers) (1598); the whole being built on the buttresses of the old
ramparts of the city of Hérault. The point of view allows to embrace
the plain of Languedoc and its surrounding villages to the massifs
of the Black Mountain, Caroux and the Pyrenees looming on the
horizon. The cathedral is classified as a historical monument by the
1840 list.
Construction history
Built on the site of an
ancient Roman temple dedicated to Augustus and his wife Livia
A
writing mentions the existence of a building from the 7th century.
A Romanesque church existed on the site of the current cathedral.
During the sack of Béziers, July 22, 1209, a fire caused the entire
destruction of the building.
The reconstruction work on the
cathedral began in the middle of the 13th century. The building is
partly built on an old cemetery.
The cathedral is dedicated to
Saints Nazaire and Celsus.
The exterior of the building
The cathedral is dominated by a square tower 48 meters high
surmounted by a turret housing an iron bell tower with a late
eighteenth century bell. The upper part (from the 15th century) is
decorated with columns, each of the bases of which represents a
human face. The bell tower contains a bumblebee (named after Marie)
of 4 tons melted by François Granier, second bell in the region by
its importance after the bumblebee of the cathedral of Montpellier.
Numerous and magnificent gargoyles, some requiring a renovation
project, adorn the walls of this magnificent cathedral. Richly
crafted fourteenth-century ironwork gates that protect the
stained-glass windows of the choir.
The sacristy built under
Guillaume de Montjoie, which adjoins the apse, lower than the
latter, dates from the fifteenth century. It has a balustrade. The
wrought iron gates date from the 13th century.
The west facade of
the building dominates the Orb.
The facade is surmounted by two
towers and a set of battlements. A round tower is set back, a real
watchtower with battlements. The facade is adorned with a rose
window 10 meters in diameter. Below is the entrance gate (which is
no longer used today) surmounted by a machicolation. The sculptures
on the facade have almost all been destroyed. Only two statues
remain located on either side of the portal, representing the
synagogue and the Church of Christ.
On the north facade of
the transept, is the entrance door (created in the seventeenth
century), surmounted by a wooden lintel which evokes the martyrdom
of Saints Nazaire and Celsus.
The interior of the cathedral
The interior of the cathedral forms a Greek cross. The building
measures:
50 meters long,
the nave 14 meters wide.
Width of
the transept: 33 meters.
Maximum height of the vault of the nave:
32 meters.
Inside you can find:
Roman columns and
capitals, vestiges of the Romanesque cathedral. Most of the columns
date from the Gothic period. The double arches supporting the vault
date from the fourteenth century.
the supports of the galleries,
located in the nave, near the choir, have friezes with triglyphs and
metopes. These friezes are imitations of degenerate Gallo-Roman
style, dating from the Romanesque period (12th century).
the
choir contains old stained glass windows from the Gothic age. It was
extensively altered in the eighteenth century in the Baroque style
with a red marble colonnade running along the wall of the apse and
framing the statues of the four evangelists, a staff glory and a
polychrome marble altar.
Above the stalls, there are 6 large
paintings. Three of them are signed Thierry and represent scenes
from the life of Moses; the other three are works by the Montpellier
painter Raoux, and show scenes from the life of Constantine and his
mother, Saint Helena.
the sacristy, built in 1443 by Bishop Guillaume de Montjoie, at
the same time as the chapter house.
the walls are partly covered
with old frescoes, restored in 1917. These frescoes were seriously
damaged during the wars of religion, then coated with a whitewash
that had to be removed later. They date from the fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries and adorn the walls of many chapels (the Chapel
of the Holy Spirit and the Chapel of the Dead in particular).
the
large rose window, with a diameter of ten meters.
The
cloister
The cloister, unfinished, adjoins the cathedral to the
south. The upper gallery was never built. The sculptures of the
vaults date from the fourteenth century. The fountain adorning its
center now occupies the Place de la Révolution. The cloister houses
the remains of a lapidary collection, the most beautiful pieces of
which have been transferred to the Musée du Biterrois. However, a
bust of a Roman statue remains on the ground, and a few statues of
sacred art are displayed on the walls. Sealed in these walls, one
can particularly notice elements of medieval and modern epigraphy,
and tombstones, as well as two fragments of late-antique sarcophagus
typical of the Aquitaine workshops.
Below the cloister is the
Bishop's Palace garden. From this garden, there is a panorama which
allows you to embrace the Orb plain, the bridges (Pont-Vieux dating
from the thirteenth century, Pont-Neuf, canal-bridge) and the Locks
of Fonserannes.
On July 11, 1769, Barbe Marguerite d'Igny de
Risaucourt, baroness of Guerpont and of Silmon, countess of
Risaucourt, princess of the Holy Empire, widow of Antoine de
Bastard-Saint-Denis de Guerpont, infantry captain, knight of The
80-year-old Order of Saint-Louis is buried in the cloister of the
cathedral by Father Bellet, in the presence of Master Joseph Gallet,
priest of Saint-Nazaire de Béziers, and Master Barthélémi Augier,
prebendary priest.
The great organ
The great organ is
installed on a platform, at the end of the nave, of which the case,
Louis XIII style and work of Guillaume Martois, dates from the
seventeenth century. The instrumental part dates partly from the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries (Guillaume Poncher 1633, Jean
de Joyeuse 1678 and Joseph Isnard 1785) and for another part from
the nineteenth century (reconstruction in 1868 by Théodore Puget
completely modifying the harmonization, i.e. that is, the general
sound of the instrument, to make it conform to romantic taste). This
instrument was restored in 1993.
The bells
The bell tower
of Béziers cathedral has 6 bells. On the roof of the bell tower, a
bell dated 1788 cast by Claude Brenel is placed in a wrought iron
campanile. The other five bells are in flight, 4 of which are in
retrograde flight with the arched cast iron yoke and one in free
throw with the beam yoke, so it is the small Bernadette bell. The
bells are arranged in a metal belfry inside the bell tower.