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90-538: Béziers ( French: [bezje] ; Occitan : Besièrs ) is a city in southern France . It is a subprefecture of the Hérault department in the Occitanie region . Every August Béziers hosts the famous Feria de Béziers , which is centred on bullfighting. A million visitors are attracted to the five-day event. The town is located on a small bluff above the river Orb , about ten kilometres (six miles) from

180-542: A common origin (see Occitano-Romance languages ). The language was one of the first to gain prestige as a medium for literature among Romance languages in the Middle Ages. Indeed, in the 12th and 13th centuries, Catalan troubadours such as Guerau de Cabrera , Guilhem de Bergadan, Guilhem de Cabestany, Huguet de Mataplana , Raimon Vidal de Besalú, Cerverí de Girona , Formit de Perpinhan, and Jofre de Foixà wrote in Occitan. At

270-636: A consonant), whereas the southernmost dialects have more features in common with the Ibero-Romance languages (e.g. betacism ; voiced fricatives between vowels in place of voiced stops; - ch - in place of - it -), and Gascon has a number of unusual features not seen in other dialects (e.g. /h/ in place of /f/ ; loss of /n/ between vowels; intervocalic -r- and final -t/ch in place of medieval - ll -). There are also significant lexical differences, where some dialects have words cognate with French, and others have Catalan and Spanish cognates. Nonetheless, there

360-523: A crusader how to tell Catholics from Cathars once they had taken the city, the abbot supposedly replied, " Caedite eos. Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius " ("Kill them all, for the Lord knoweth them that are His"). (This oft-quoted phrase is sourced from Caesarius of Heisterbach along with a story of all the heretics who desecrated a copy of the Gospels and threw it down from the town's walls.) Amalric's own version of

450-516: A dialect of French spoken by Jews in southern France. Southern Jewish French is now estimated to only be spoken by about 50–100 people. Domergue Sumien proposes a slightly different supradialectal grouping. Papal legate The legate is appointed directly by the Pope—the Bishop of Rome and head of the Catholic Church. Hence a legate is usually sent to a government, a sovereign or to

540-668: A field and irrigation system which is visible from the Oppidum d'Ensérune. Béziers is a principal centre of the Languedoc viticulture and wine making industries. Road : The A9 autoroute between Italy and Spain skirts Béziers. The final link in the A75 autoroute between Pézenas and the A9 was completed in December 2010 and provides direct links to Clermont-Ferrand and Paris. Rail : The Gare de Béziers

630-455: A handful of survivors. (A plaque opposite the cathedral records the "Day of Butchery" perpetrated by the "northern barons".) Despite the massacre, the city was repopulated. A few parts of the Romanesque cathedral of St-Nazaire had survived the carnage, and repairs started in 1215. The restoration, along with that of the rest of the city, continued until the 15th century. Béziers became part of

720-624: A large body of believers (such as a national church) or to take charge of a major religious effort, such as an ecumenical council , a crusade to the Holy Land, or even against a heresy such as the Cathars . The term legation is applied both to a legate's mandate and to the territory concerned (such as a state, or an ecclesiastical province). The relevant adjective is legatine . In the High Middle Ages , papal legates were often used to strengthen

810-859: A name still derived from the social life of the Ancien Régime ; it then became "Society of the Friends of the Constitution and Liberty". Later becoming affiliated to the Jacobin Club of Paris, the Béziers organization was accordingly renamed the "Society of the Jacobins"; then, the abolition of the French monarchy precipitated two further changes of name: "Society of Brothers and Friends of the Republic" and then "Regenerated Society of

900-729: A part of a wider Occitano-Romanic group. One such classification posits three groups: According to this view, Catalan is an ausbau language that became independent from Occitan during the 13th century, but originates from the Aquitano-Pyrenean group. Occitan has 3 dialects spoken by Jewish communities that are all now extinct. A sociolect of the Gascon dialect spoken by Spanish and Portuguese Jews in Gascony . It, like many other Jewish dialects and languages, contained large amounts of Hebrew loanwords. It went extinct after World War 2 with

990-793: A rear base during various wars of the modern period, especially those against the Habsburgs. It was only once directly threatened. During the War of the Spanish Succession , the British in 1710 landed at Sète and moved to within a few kilometres of Béziers, before being repulsed by the Duke of Roquelaure . Béziers was at the heart of the Montmorency Revolt in 1632. It was in Béziers that Gaston d'Orléans and Henri II de Montmorency , Governor of Languedoc , met at

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1080-540: A second Occitan immigration of this period was assimilated by the similar Navarro-Aragonese language , which at the same time was fostered and chosen by the kings of Aragon . In the 14th century, Occitan across the whole southern Pyrenean area fell into decay and became largely absorbed into Navarro-Aragonese first and Castilian later in the 15th century, after their exclusive boroughs broke up (1423, Pamplona 's boroughs unified). Gascon-speaking communities were called to move in for trading purposes by Navarrese kings in

1170-538: A single written standard form, nor does it have official status in France, home to most of its speakers. Instead, there are competing norms for writing Occitan, some of which attempt to be pan-dialectal, whereas others are based on a particular dialect. These efforts are hindered by the rapidly declining use of Occitan as a spoken language in much of southern France, as well as by the significant differences in phonology and vocabulary among different Occitan dialects. According to

1260-469: A unitary language, as it lacks an official written standard . Like other languages that fundamentally exist at a spoken, rather than written, level (e.g. the Rhaeto-Romance languages , Franco-Provençal , Astur-Leonese , and Aragonese ), every settlement technically has its own dialect, with the whole of Occitania forming a classic dialect continuum that changes gradually along any path from one side to

1350-608: A written account in Occitan from Pamplona centered on the burning of borough San Nicolas from 1258, while the History of the War of Navarre by Guilhem Anelier (1276), albeit written in Pamplona, shows a linguistic variant from Toulouse . Things turned out slightly otherwise in Aragon, where the sociolinguistic situation was different, with a clearer Basque-Romance bilingual situation (cf. Basques from

1440-410: Is "probably not more divergent from Occitan overall than Gascon is". There is no general agreement about larger groupings of these dialects. Max Wheeler divides the dialects into two groups: Pierre Bec divides the dialects into three groups: In order to overcome the pitfalls of the traditional romanistic view, Bec proposed a "supradialectal" classification that groups Occitan with Catalan as

1530-614: Is a Romance language spoken in Southern France , Monaco , Italy 's Occitan Valleys , as well as Spain 's Val d'Aran in Catalonia ; collectively, these regions are sometimes referred to as Occitania . It is also spoken in Calabria ( Southern Italy ) in a linguistic enclave of Cosenza area (mostly Guardia Piemontese ). Some include Catalan in Occitan, as the linguistic distance between this language and some Occitan dialects (such as

1620-499: Is a railway station with connections to Toulouse, Montpellier, Bordeaux, Marseille, Paris, Barcelona and several regional destinations. TGV trains stop in Béziers, but the tracks between Montpellier and Spain are not yet high-speed tracks. Air : Béziers Cap d'Agde Airport (previously Béziers-Agde-Vias Airport), owned by the Chamber of commerce and industry, provides connections to destinations in northern Europe. Following an extension to

1710-411: Is a significant amount of mutual intelligibility . Gascon is the most divergent, and descriptions of the main features of Occitan often consider Gascon separately. Max Wheeler notes that "probably only its copresence within the French cultural sphere has kept [Gascon] from being regarded as a separate language", and compares it to Franco-Provençal, which is considered a separate language from Occitan but

1800-471: Is marked, "I am a wine from Baeterrae and I am five years old." Another is simply marked, "white wine of Baeterrae." Béziers was conquered by the Muslims and remained part of Islamic Iberia between 720 and 752. From the 10th to the 12th centuries, Béziers was the centre of a Viscountship of Béziers . The viscounts ruled most of the coastal plain around Béziers, including the town of Agde. They also controlled

1890-631: Is the apostolic nuncio , whose task it is to strengthen relations between the Holy See and the Catholic Church in a particular country and at the same time to act as the diplomatic representative of the Holy See to the government of that country. An apostolic nuncio is generally equivalent in rank to that of ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary , although in Catholic countries the nuncio often ranks above ambassadors in diplomatic protocol. A nuncio performs

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1980-413: Is the other native language. Up to seven million people in France understand the language, whereas twelve to fourteen million fully spoke it in 1921. In 1860 , Occitan speakers represented more than 39% of the whole French population (52% for francophones proper); they were still 26% to 36% in the 1920s and fewer than 7% in 1993. Occitan is fundamentally defined by its dialects, rather than being

2070-462: Is worthier and better suited for romances and pastourelles ; but [the language] from Limousin is of greater value for writing poems and cançons and sirventés ; and across the whole of the lands where our tongue is spoken, the literature in the Limousin language has more authority than any other dialect, wherefore I shall use this name in priority. The term Provençal , though implying a reference to

2160-518: The òc language (Occitan), the oïl language (French), and the sì language (Italian). The word òc came from Vulgar Latin hoc ("this"), while oïl originated from Latin hoc illud ("this [is] it"). Old Catalan and now the Catalan of Northern Catalonia also have hoc ( òc ). Other Romance languages derive their word for "yes" from the Latin sic , "thus [it is], [it

2250-519: The Dictatus papae , a papal legate "presides over all bishops in a council, even if he is inferior in rank, and he can pronounce sentence of deposition against them". During the Middle Ages , a legatine council was the usual means that a papal legate imposed his directives. There are several ranks of papal legates in diplomacy, some of which are no longer used. The most common form of papal legate today

2340-622: The Romance of Flamenca (13th century), the Song of the Albigensian Crusade (1213–1219?), Daurel e Betó (12th or 13th century), Las, qu'i non-sun sparvir, astur (11th century) and Tomida femina (9th or 10th century). Occitan was the vehicle for the influential poetry of the medieval troubadours ( trobadors ) and trobairitz : At that time, the language was understood and celebrated throughout most of educated Europe. It

2430-652: The Canal du Midi is still used commercially to carry Languedoc wine to Bordeaux for blending. The canals locks have a maximum length of 30 m, slightly less than the 38.5 m adopted under the later Freycinet standard. Although parts of the River Orb are navigable, the river is interrupted by a number of impassable weirs. Béziers' rugby union team is AS Béziers Hérault , the football team is AS Béziers (2007) which plays in Championnat National 2 . The women's volleyball team,

2520-582: The Gascon language ) is similar to the distance between different Occitan dialects. Catalan was considered a dialect of Occitan until the end of the 19th century and still today remains its closest relative. Occitan is an official language of Catalonia, Spain, where a subdialect of Gascon known as Aranese is spoken (in the Val d'Aran ). Since September 2010, the Parliament of Catalonia has considered Aranese Occitan to be

2610-806: The Mediterranean coast and 75 kilometres (47 miles) southwest of Montpellier . At Béziers, the Canal du Midi passes over the river Orb by means of the Pont-canal de l'Orb , an aqueduct claimed to be the first of its kind. Béziers is one of the oldest cities in France. Research published in March 2013 shows that the ancient Greek colony of Béziers dates from 575 BCE, making it older than Agde (Greek Agathe Tyche, founded in 525 BCE) and slightly younger than Marseille (Greek Massalia, founded in 600 BCE). The site has been occupied since Neolithic times, before

2700-582: The Narbonne shooting, about 500 soldiers of the 6th company of the 17th regiment mutinied, plundered the armory and headed for Béziers. They traveled about twenty kilometers by night. On 21 June, in the early morning, they arrived in town. They were warmly welcomed by the Biterrois, "fraternizing with the demonstrators, and peacefully opposing the armed forces". The soldiers sat down on the Allées Paul Riquet and

2790-563: The Pyrénées-Orientales . Together, these supplied some 40% of French wine production. Haut Languedoc, and more particularly the Biterrois and Béziers, proclaimed themselves to be "The World Capital of Wine" and grew rapidly. Great fortunes were made. Large landowners, coming from industry, finance or the liberal professions, gained possession of immense vineyards. There was also a growing foreign competition, with smuggled wines appearing on

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2880-461: The UNESCO Red Book of Endangered Languages , four of the six major dialects of Occitan (Provençal, Auvergnat , Limousin and Languedocien) are considered severely endangered , whereas the remaining two ( Gascon and Vivaro-Alpine ) are considered definitely endangered . The name Occitan comes from the term lenga d'òc ("language of òc "), òc being the Occitan word for yes. While

2970-574: The Val d'Aran cited c.  1000 ), but a receding Basque language (Basque banned in the marketplace of Huesca, 1349). While the language was chosen as a medium of prestige in records and official statements along with Latin in the early 13th century, Occitan faced competition from the rising local Romance vernacular, the Navarro-Aragonese , both orally and in writing, especially after Aragon's territorial conquests south to Zaragoza , Huesca and Tudela between 1118 and 1134. It resulted that

3060-401: The deanship of that country's diplomatic corps to the nuncio regardless of seniority. Pro-nuncio was a term used from 1965 to 1991 for a papal diplomatic representative of full ambassadorial rank accredited to a country that did not accord him precedence over other ambassadors and ex officio deanship of the diplomatic corps. In those countries, the papal representative's precedence within

3150-627: The (pope's) side", i.e. "intimately" trusted) is normally awarded to a priest of cardinal rank . It is an exceptional investiture and can either be focused or broad in scope. The legate a latere is the alter ego of the Pope, and as such, possesses full plenipotentiary powers. Literally "born legate", i.e. not nominated individually but ex officio , namely a bishop holding this rank as a privilege of his see, e.g. archbishops of Canterbury (pre- Reformation ), Prague , Esztergom , Udine , Salzburg , Gniezno and Cologne . The legatus natus would act as

3240-587: The 17th century onwards by a sub-delegate of the Intendant. Béziers was not damaged in the Hundred Years' War . On 8 September 1381, a riot broke out at the seat of the municipal council, rioters setting the Town House on fire. The councillors tried to take refuge in the tower, but fire spread there as well, and they all died either by fire or in jumping from the tower to the square. King Charles IX passed through

3330-577: The Albigensian Crusade, but also of the ability of troubadours to survive it. Rule of the city was for a long time divided among three powers: the Bishopric, which reached its apogee in the 16th and 17th centuries when it was held by the Bonsi family, allied to the Medici ; the consuls, local magistrates created at the end of the 12th century; and finally the king, represented by a "Viguier for judicial affairs", and from

3420-522: The Béziers Angels, won the national LNV Ligue A Féminine in 2018. Béziers has been twinned with: Occitan language Italy Occitan ( English: / ˈ ɒ k s ɪ t ən , - t æ n , - t ɑː n / ; Occitan pronunciation: [utsiˈta, uksiˈta] ), also known as lenga d'òc ( Occitan: [ˈleŋɡɒ ˈðɔ(k)] ; French : langue d'oc ) by its native speakers, sometimes also referred to as Provençal ,

3510-426: The Béziers municipal council, of Radical and Socialist tendency, resigned. The pressure of the street continued. The police station and the town hall façade were set on fire. Alerted, Georges Clemenceau decided to launch a counterattack. The 17th regiment of line infantry, composed of reservists and conscripts, was on his orders transferred from Béziers to Agde on 18 June 1907. On the evening of 20 June, learning of

3600-524: The French aristocracy against the native Occitan nobility, and have been described as "gallicised". Raimon Gaucelm supported the Eighth Crusade and even wrote a planh , the only known one of its kind, to a burgher of Béziers. Joan Esteve and Bernart both composed in support of the French in the Aragonese Crusade . These poets are a shining example of the transformation of Occitania in the aftermath of

3690-452: The Jacobins, Friends of the Republic". From 1790 to 1800, Béziers was the chief town of the district of Béziers. The city did not take part in the Girondin ("Federalist") movement. In the repression following Louis Napoléon 's coup d'état in 1851, troops fired on and killed Republican protesters in Béziers. Others were condemned to death or transported to Guiana , including Casimir Péret ,

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3780-592: The Judeo-Occitan dialects, Judeo-Niçard was spoken by the community of Jews living in Nice , who were descendants of Jewish immigrants from Provence, Piedmont, and other Mediterranean communities. Its existence is attested from a few documents from the 19th century. It contained significant influence in both vocabulary and grammar from Hebrew. All three of these dialects have some influence in Southern Jewish French,

3870-631: The Place de la Citadelle, (now Place Jean-Jaurès). the Speakers included Marcelin Albert who issued an ultimatum to the government, demanding that it raise the price of wine, Ernest Ferroul who advocated tax refusal and the Béziers Mayor Émile Suchon, (close to Clemenceau ), who took a stand in support of the winegrowers' struggle. There were some minor incidents during the dispersal of the demonstrators. On 16 May,

3960-453: The Pope's representative in his province, with a legatus a latere only being sent in extraordinary circumstances. Although limited in their jurisdiction compared to legati a latere , a legatus natus was not subordinate to them. Literally "sent legate", possessing limited powers for the purpose of completing a specific mission. This commission is normally focused in scope and of short duration. Some administrative (temporal) provinces of

4050-700: The beginning of the rebellion. It was also here that the king, by the Edict of Béziers (October 1632), abolished the privileges of the province. (They were restored in 1649.) During the 18th century, Béziers prospered, notably thanks to the cultivation of vines which enabled it to become an important centre for alcohol trading. During the French Revolution, citizens of Béziers met in a revolutionary society created in May 1790 and numbering up to 400 members. It had several successive names: first, "The Literary and Patriotic Cabinet",

4140-452: The cities in southern France is unlikely to hear a single Occitan word spoken on the street (or, for that matter, in a home), and is likely to only find the occasional vestige, such as street signs (and, of those, most will have French equivalents more prominently displayed), to remind them of the traditional language of the area. Occitan speakers, as a result of generations of systematic suppression and humiliation (see Vergonha ), seldom use

4230-506: The city and to "avoid sharing their fate and perishing with them". However, many refused and resisted with the Cathars. The town was sacked the following day and in the bloody massacre no one was spared, not even Catholic priests and those who took refuge in the churches. One of the commanders of the crusade was the Papal legate Arnaud-Amaury (or Arnald Amalaricus, abbot of Citeaux ). When asked by

4320-548: The city during his royal tour of France (1564–1566), accompanied by the Court and the great men of the kingdom: his brother Henry , the Duke of Anjou , his distant cousin Henri of Navarre , and the Cardinal of Bourbon with the Cardinal of Lorraine . In 1551, Béziers became the seat of a seneschal , being removed from the jurisdiction of the seneschals of Carcassonne . The city served as

4410-402: The corps is exactly on a par with that of the other members of ambassadorial rank, so that he becomes dean only on becoming the senior member of the corps. For countries with which the Holy See has no diplomatic relations, an apostolic delegate is sent to serve as a liaison with the Catholic Church in that country, though not accredited to its government. This highest rank (literally "from

4500-426: The ditches and the walls and Béziers was taken. Our men spared no one, irrespective of rank, sex or age, and put to the sword almost 20,000 people. After this great slaughter the whole city was despoiled and burnt ... The invaders burned the Cathedral of Saint Nazaire , which collapsed on those who had taken refuge inside. The town was pillaged and burnt. By some accounts, none were left alive—by others, there were

4590-435: The early 12th century to the coastal fringe extending from San Sebastian to the river Bidasoa , where they settled down. The language variant they used was different from the ones in Navarre, i.e. a Béarnese dialect of Gascon. Gascon remained in use in this area far longer than in Navarre and Aragon, until the 19th century, thanks mainly to the fact that Donostia and Pasaia maintained close ties with Bayonne . Though it

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4680-586: The end of the 11th century, the Franks , as they were called at the time, started to penetrate the Iberian Peninsula through the Ways of St. James via Somport and Roncesvalles , settling in various locations in the Kingdoms of Navarre and Aragon enticed by the privileges granted them by the Navarrese kings . They settled in large groups, forming ethnic boroughs where Occitan was used for everyday life, in Pamplona , Sangüesa , and Estella-Lizarra , among others. These boroughs in Navarre may have been close-knit communities that tended not to assimilate with

4770-497: The end of the mutiny and gained a parliamentary vote of confidence by 327 votes to 223. On 23 June, a law was finally passed, which repressed the massive chaptalisation of the wines. Negotiations and the scale of the movement prevented collective punishment: the mutineers of the 17th were assigned to Gafsa ( Tunisia ), a place where soldiers were often sent for "disciplinary companies", but these soldiers remained outside this framework, and were under ordinary military status. There

4860-416: The geographical territory in which Occitan is spoken is surrounded by regions in which other Romance languages are used, external influences may have influenced its origin and development. Many factors favored its development as its own language. Catalan in Spain's northern and central Mediterranean coastal regions and the Balearic Islands is closely related to Occitan, sharing many linguistic features and

4950-418: 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 third century. Béziers exported wine to Rome. A dolium discovered in an excavation near Rome

5040-476: The language at the beginning of the 13th century by Catalan troubadour Raimon Vidal de Besalú(n) in his Razós de trobar : La parladura Francesca val mais et [es] plus avinenz a far romanz e pasturellas; mas cella de Lemozin val mais per far vers et cansons et serventés; et per totas las terras de nostre lengage son de major autoritat li cantar de la lenga Lemosina que de negun'autra parladura, per qu'ieu vos en parlarai primeramen. The French language

5130-409: The language in the presence of strangers, whether they are from abroad or from outside Occitania (in this case, often merely and abusively referred to as Parisiens or Nordistes , which means northerners ). Occitan is still spoken by many elderly people in rural areas, but they generally switch to French when dealing with outsiders. Occitan's decline is somewhat less pronounced in Béarn because of

5220-422: The language. Following the pattern of language shift , most of this remainder is to be found among the eldest populations. Occitan activists (called Occitanists ) have attempted, in particular with the advent of Occitan-language preschools (the Calandretas ), to reintroduce the language to the young. Nonetheless, the number of proficient speakers of Occitan is thought to be dropping precipitously. A tourist in

5310-408: The larger collection of dialects grouped under the name langues d'oïl ) should be used for all French administration. Occitan's greatest decline occurred during the French Revolution , in which diversity of language was considered a threat. In 1903, the four Gospels ( "Lis Evangèli" , i.e. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John) were translated into Provençal as spoken in Cannes and Grasse. The translation

5400-406: The last speakers being elderly Jews in Bayonne . About 850 unique words and a few morphological and grammatical aspects of the dialect were transmitted to Southern Jewish French. Judeo-Provençal was a dialect of Occitan spoken by Jews in Provence . The dialect declined in usage after Jews were expelled from the area in 1498, and was probably extinct by the 20th century. The least attested of

5490-772: The latter term for the language as a whole. Many non-specialists, however, continue to refer to the language as Provençal . One of the oldest written fragments of the language found dates back to 960, shown here in italics mixed with non-italicized Latin: De ista hora in antea non decebrà Ermengaus filius Eldiarda Froterio episcopo filio Girberga ne Raimundo filio Bernardo vicecomite de castello de Cornone ... no·l li tolrà ni no·l li devedarà ni no l'en decebrà  ... nec societatem non aurà , si per castellum recuperare non o fa , et si recuperare potuerit in potestate Froterio et Raimundo lo tornarà , per ipsas horas quæ Froterius et Raimundus l'en comonrà . Carolingian litanies ( c.  780 ), though

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5580-440: The leader sang in Latin , were answered to in Old Occitan by the people ( Ora pro nos ; Tu lo juva ). Other famous pieces include the Boecis , a 258-line-long poem written entirely in the Limousin dialect of Occitan between the year 1000 and 1030 and inspired by Boethius 's The Consolation of Philosophy ; the Waldensian La nobla leyczon (dated 1100), Cançó de Santa Fe ( c.  1054 –1076),

5670-450: The links between Rome and the many parts of Christendom . More often than not, legates were learned men and skilled diplomats who were not from the country they were accredited to. For example, the Italian-born Guala Bicchieri served as papal legate to England in the early 13th century and played a major role in both the English government and church at the time. By the Late Middle Ages it had become more common to appoint native clerics to

5760-632: The major east–west route through Languedoc, which roughly follows 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. c. 1012). It was then ruled by their son Peter-Raimond (d. c. 1060) and his son Roger (d. 1067), both of whom were also counts of Carcassonne . Roger died without issue and Béziers passed to his sister Ermengard and her husband Raimond-Bertrand Trencavel . The Trencavels ruled for

5850-534: The market. On 12 May 1907, no less than 150,000 protesters gathered in Béziers with the declared aim of "Defending the Southern Viticulture". The crowd spilled into Paul-Riquet and the Champ-de-Mars. The slogans on the banners Proclaimed: "Victory or death! Enough of talking, the time has come for action! Death to fraudsters! Bread or death! Live by working or die fighting!". The demonstrators, who came from more than 200 communes, were joined by numerous Biterrois employees and shopkeepers. The event ended with speeches on

5940-424: The market. The fraudsters remained unpunished. In 1892, the winegrowers of the Midi demanded "The restoration and enforcement of customs duties". But the market remained partly held by wines made from imported dried grapes (such as grapes from Corinth ), and wines called "wet" (adulterated with water). Though the vintners attached great importance to this unfair competition, in fact it did not represent more than 5% of

6030-401: The mayor at the time, who died at sea attempting to escape from there. In the Place de la Révolution a plaque and a monument by Jean Antoine Injalbert commemorates these events. (Injalbert also designed the Fontaine du Titan in Béziers' Plâteau des Poètes park.) While elsewhere in France, the area planted with vines was decreasing, it increased in the departments of Aude , Gard, Hérault and

6120-415: The modern Occitan-speaking area. After Frédéric Mistral 's Félibrige movement in the 19th century, Provençal achieved the greatest literary recognition and so became the most popular term for Occitan. According to Joseph Anglade , a philologist and specialist of medieval literature who helped impose the then archaic term Occitan as the standard name, the word Lemosin was first used to designate

6210-422: The negative sense: for example, "Vous n'avez pas de frères?" "Si, j'en ai sept." ("You have no brothers?" "But yes, I have seven."). The name "Occitan" was attested around 1300 as occitanus , a crossing of oc and aquitanus ( Aquitanian ). For many centuries, the Occitan dialects (together with Catalan ) were referred to as Limousin or Provençal , after the names of two regions lying within

6300-420: The next 142 years, until the Albigensian Crusade , a formal crusade (holy war) authorised by Pope Innocent III . Béziers was a stronghold of Catharism , which the Catholic Church condemned as heretical and exterminated in the Albigensian Crusade . The crusaders reached Béziers on 21 July 1209. Béziers' Catholics were given an ultimatum to hand over the heretics or leave before the crusaders besieged

6390-488: The officially preferred language for use in the Val d'Aran. Across history, the terms Limousin ( Lemosin ), Languedocien ( Lengadocian ), Gascon , in addition to Provençal ( Provençal , Provençau or Prouvençau ) later have been used as synonyms for the whole of Occitan; nowadays, the term "Provençal" is understood mainly as the Occitan dialect spoken in Provence , in southeast France. Unlike other Romance languages such as French or Spanish , Occitan does not have

6480-478: The other. Nonetheless, specialists commonly divide Occitan into six main dialects: The northern and easternmost dialects have more morphological and phonetic features in common with the Gallo-Italic and Oïl languages (e.g. nasal vowels ; loss of final consonants; initial cha/ja- instead of ca/ga- ; uvular ⟨r⟩ ; the front-rounded sound /ø/ instead of a diphthong, /w/ instead of /l/ before

6570-424: The population offered them wine and food. The South was on the brink of insurrection. In Paulhan , the railway was taken out of commission by protesters who stopped a military convoy sent to quell the mutineers. In Lodève , the sub-prefect was taken hostage. The military authorities were not ready to accept this mutiny, apprehensive that the example of the 17th regiment would give similar ideas to other regiments in

6660-599: The position of legate within their own country, such as Cardinal Wolsey acting as legate to the court of Henry VIII of England . The reason for this switch in policy could be attributed to a change in attitude on the eve of the Reformation ; by this point, foreign men representing the papacy would be more likely to reinforce dissent than bring Christendom closer together. Papal legates often summoned legatine councils , which dealt with church government and other ecclesiastical issues. According to Pope Gregory VII , writing in

6750-538: The predominantly Basque -speaking general population. Their language became the status language chosen by the Navarrese kings, nobility, and upper classes for official and trade purposes in the period stretching from the early 13th century to the late 14th century. Written administrative records were in a koiné based on the Languedocien dialect from Toulouse with fairly archaic linguistic features. Evidence survives of

6840-653: The province's history (a late addition to the Kingdom of France), though even there the language is little spoken outside the homes of the rural elderly. The village of Artix is notable for having elected to post street signs in the local language. The area where Occitan was historically dominant has approximately 16 million inhabitants. Recent research has shown it may be spoken as a first language by approximately 789,000 people in France , Italy , Spain and Monaco . In Monaco, Occitan coexists with Monégasque Ligurian , which

6930-622: The refrain: "Salute, salute to you / Brave soldiers of the seventeenth...." Béziers has a Mediterranean climate ( Köppen climate classification Csa ). The average annual temperature in Béziers is 15.1 °C (59.2 °F). The average annual rainfall is 595.7 mm (23.45 in) with October as the wettest month. The temperatures are highest on average in July, at around 24.1 °C (75.4 °F), and lowest in January, at around 7.5 °C (45.5 °F). The highest temperature ever recorded in Béziers

7020-513: The region of Provence , historically was used for Occitan as a whole, for "in the eleventh, the twelfth, and sometimes also the thirteenth centuries, one would understand under the name of Provence the whole territory of the old Provincia romana Gallia Narbonensis and even Aquitaine ". The term first came into fashion in Italy . Currently, linguists use the terms Provençal and Limousin strictly to refer to specific varieties within Occitan, using

7110-460: The region. In Paris, the Republic trembled, as Clemenceau had to face a vote of no confidence. However, he survived by letting the military command urgently negotiate with the mutineers. In the afternoon, after obtaining a guarantee that no sanctions will be imposed on them, the 17th soldiers put down their arms and marched to the station under escort, without any major incident. On 22 June, they returned by train to their barracks. Clemenceau announced

7200-425: The royal domain in 1247. A school of troubadours arose at Béziers in the 1260s–80s, with four poets: Bernart d'Auriac , Joan Esteve , Joan Miralhas , and Raimon Gaucelm . The latter three were natives of Béziers. All four lived there and were members of the urban middle class and no courtesans: Miralhas was possibly a potter and Bernart a teacher. They wrote in Occitan but supported the French king Louis IX and

7290-481: The runway which was completed in March 2007, Ryanair began flights to and from Bristol Airport in March 2008, and later to London Stansted and London Luton Airport . Current (January 2013) destinations from this airport with Ryanair are Bristol, London Luton Airport , Paris Beauvais , Oslo Rygge , Manchester , Edinburgh , Weeze Airport and Stockholm Skavsta , while Flybe serves Southampton . Canal : Primarily used today by trip boats and plaisanciers ,

7380-401: The same functions as an ambassador and has the same diplomatic privileges. Under the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations , to which the Holy See is a party, a nuncio is an ambassador like those from any other country. The Vienna Convention allows the host state to grant seniority of precedence to the nuncio over others of ambassadorial rank accredited to the same country, and may grant

7470-485: The siege, described in his letter to Pope Innocent III in August 1209 (col. 139), states: While discussions were still going on with the barons about the release of those in the city who were deemed to be Catholics, the servants and other persons of low rank and unarmed attacked the city without waiting for orders from their leaders. To our amazement, crying "to arms, to arms!", within the space of two or three hours they crossed

7560-623: The term would have been in use orally for some time after the decline of Latin, as far as historical records show, the Italian medieval poet Dante was the first to have recorded the term lingua d'oc in writing. In his De vulgari eloquentia , he wrote in Latin, "nam alii oc, alii si, alii vero dicunt oil" ("for some say òc , others sì , yet others say oïl "), thereby highlighting three major Romance literary languages that were well known in Italy, based on each language's word for "yes",

7650-511: Was 42.0 °C (107.6 °F) on 7 July 1982; the coldest temperature ever recorded was −16.0 °C (3.2 °F) on 16 January 1985. The inhabitants of Béziers are known as Biterrois , after Baeterrae , the Roman name for the town. Other sites and monuments Other sights in the area include the Oppidum d'Ensérune archaeological site and the Étang de Montady , a marsh drained in 1247 to create

7740-444: Was done], etc.", such as Spanish sí , Eastern Lombard sé , Italian sì , or Portuguese sim . In modern Catalan, as in modern Spanish, sí is usually used as a response, although the language retains the word oi , akin to òc , which is sometimes used at the end of yes–no questions and also in higher register as a positive response. French uses si to answer "yes" in response to questions that are asked in

7830-478: Was given the official Roman Catholic Imprimatur by vicar general A. Estellon. The literary renaissance of the late 19th century (in which the 1904 Nobel Prize in Literature winner, Frédéric Mistral, among others, was involved) was attenuated by World War I , when (in addition to the disruption caused by any major war) many Occitan speakers spent extended periods of time alongside French-speaking comrades. Because

7920-543: Was still an everyday language for most of the rural population of southern France well into the 20th century, it is now spoken by about 100,000 people in France according to 2012 estimates. There is a movement in regions of France where Occitan was widely spoken to introduce educational programs to encourage young people in these regions to learn the language. According to the 1999 census, there were 610,000 native speakers (almost all of whom were also native French speakers) and perhaps another million people with some exposure to

8010-511: Was the maternal language of the English queen Eleanor of Aquitaine and kings Richard I (who wrote troubadour poetry) and John . With the gradual imposition of French royal power over its territory, Occitan declined in status from the 14th century on. The Ordinance of Villers-Cotterêts (1539) decreed that the langue d'oïl (French – though at the time referring to the Francien language and not

8100-494: Was therefore no penal sanction for the revolt of the 17th, contrary to the legend that developed on this subject. However, during the First World War , haunted by their reputation as deserters, many of them were sent to the front line, particularly in the bloody assaults of 1914. The mutiny of soldiers of the 17th has remained in historical memory, especially with the words of Montéhus ' anti-militarist song "Gloire au 17", with

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