XII St. Nazaire de Béziers
St. Nazaire de Béziers is, in its strongly fortified attributes of frowning ramparts and well-nigh invulnerable situation, a continuation of the suggestion that the mediæval church was frequently a stronghold in more senses than one.
The church fabric itself has not the grimness of power of the more magnificent St. Cécile at Albi or Notre Dame at Rodez, but their functions have been much the same; and here, as at Albi, the ancient episcopal palace is duly barricaded after a manner that bespeaks, at least, forethought and strategy.
These fortress-churches of the South seem to have been a product of environment as much as anything; though on the other hand it may have been an all-seeing effort to provide for such contingency or emergency as might, in those mediæval times, have sprung up anywhere.
At all events, these proclaimed shelters, from whatever persecution or disasters might befall, were not only for the benefit of the clergy, but for all their constituency; and such stronghold as they offered was for the shelter, temporary or protracted, of all the population, or such of them as could be accommodated. Surely this was a doubly devout and utilitarian object.
In this section at any rate—the extreme south of France, and more particularly to the westward of the Bouches-du-Rhône—the regional “wars of religion” made some such protection necessary; and hence the development of this type of church-building, not only with respect to the larger cathedral churches, but of a great number of the parish churches which were erected during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.
The other side of the picture is shown by the acts of intolerance on the part of the Church, for those who merely differed from them in their religious tenets and principles. Fanatics these outsiders may have been, and perhaps not wholly tractable or harmless, but they were, doubtless, as deserving of protection as were the faithful themselves. This was not for them, however, and as for the violence and hatred with which they were held here, one has only to recall that at Béziers took place the crowning massacres of the Albigenses—“the most learned, intellectual, and philosophic revolters from the Church of Rome.”
Beneath the shadow of these grim walls and towers over twenty thousand men and women and children were slaughtered by the fanatics of orthodox France and Rome; led on and incited by the Bishop of Béziers, who has been called—and justly as it would seem—“the blackest-souled bigot who ever deformed the face of God’s earth.”
The cathedral at Béziers is not a great or imposing structure when taken by itself. It is only in conjunction with its fortified walls and ramparts and commanding situation that it rises to supreme rank.
It is commonly classed as a work of the twelfth to fourteenth centuries, and with the characteristics of its era and local environment, it presents no very grand or ornate features.
Its first general plan was due to a layman-architect, Gervais, which perhaps accounts for a certain lack of what might otherwise be referred to as ecclesiastical splendour.
The remains of this early work are presumably slight; perhaps nothing more than the foundation walls, as a fire in 1209 did a considerable damage.
The transepts were added in the thirteenth century, and the two dwarfed towers in the fourteenth, at which period was built the clocher (151 feet), the apside, and the nave proper.
There is not a great brilliancy or refulgent glow from the fabric from which St. Nazaire de Béziers is built; as is so frequent in secular works in this region. The stone was dark, apparently, to start with, and has aged considerably since it was put into place. This, in a great measure, accounts for the lack of liveliness in the design and arrangement of this cathedral, and the only note which breaks the monotony of the exterior are the two statues, symbolical of the ancient and the modern laws of the universe, which flank the western portal—or what stands for such, did it but possess the dignity of magnitude.
So far as the exterior goes, it is one’s first acquaintance with St. Nazaire, when seen across the river Orb, which gives the most lively and satisfying impression.
The interior attributes of worth and interest are more numerous and pleasing.
The nave is aisleless, but has numerous lateral chapels. The choir has a remarkable series of windows which preserve, even to-day, their ancient protecting grilles—a series of wonderfully worked iron scrolls. These serve to preserve much fourteenth-century glass of curious, though hardly beautiful, design. To a great extent this ancient glass is hidden from view by a massive eighteenth-century retable, which is without any worth whatever as an artistic accessory.
A cloister of the fourteenth century flanks the nave on the south, and is the chief feature of really appealing quality within the confines of the cathedral precincts.
The view from the terrace before the cathedral is one which is hardly approachable elsewhere. For many miles in all directions stretches the low, flat plain of Languedoc; the Mediterranean lies to the east; the Cevennes and the valley of the Orb to the north; with the lance-like Canal du Midi stretching away to the westward.
As might be expected, the streets of the city are tortuous and narrow, but there are evidences of the march of improvement which may in time be expected to eradicate all this—to the detriment of the picturesque aspect.