DESTINATIONS
Our pilgrimage starts upon your arrival in Marseille on the afternoon of Tuesday, March 24 and ends when we deliver you to Toulouse Airport on the afternoon of April 1, 2009. Please note that should you wish to travel earlier, or remain later than the dates above, you are free to do so. As some of you may elect to stay on in Toulouse for a few days (recommended), we have not included the accommodation or dinner for the night of April 1 in our price. We can make recommendations regarding places to stay should you wish to do so.
March 24: Arles
You will spend your first night in Arles, the first city Mary is said to have visited after landing in Gaul. Arles sits on a low hill where the Rhône River branches in two parts to the sea. The commune is the largest in France, with an area of 75,893 ha (about 170,000 acres). The town dates back to the 7th century BC, and was a major Gallo-Roman city. The major Roman sites, such as the Arena and the Theater, are unique in that they are integrated into the houses and buildings of the town, rather than sitting apart as they do in places such as Orange. The streets of this city are truly medieval in character: narrow and winding between ancient buildings. Automobile traffic is permitted on many of them, but walking is much easier than driving.
During the Celto-Ligurian period, Arles is the site of the Phoenician town of Theline from the 7th century BC. Large amounts of 6th-c-BC Greek pottery found here indicate that this was a staging post for river traffic between Marseille (Massalia) and northern Gaul. In the 4th-century BC, this was the Celtic-Ligurian town of Arelate, meaning 'the town by the marshes'.
In Gallo-Roman time, Arles was one of the richest urban centers in France. In 102 BC, Marius started construction of the Fossae Marianae, a shipping canal paralleling the Grand Rhône from Arelate to the sea. In 46 BC, Roman legion veterans were settled here, in a large territory taken from the Salyen tribe and from Massalia. At this time, Arelate became Colonia sextanorum, and later Arles. Caesar used local shipyards for building warships to fight against Massalia in 49 BC. The port brought prosperity to Arles during the reign of Augustus, and by the time of Constantine (306-337), it was the second capital of the Empire. Ausonius called it "the little Rome of Gaul".
In medieval times the city did not fare so well. Barbarian invasions from the 5th to 9th centuries were devastating, and Arles didn't recover until Charlemagne's empire, when it became the capital of an independent state, the Kingdom of Arles. In 1521, Arles was permanently attached to the Comté de Provence.
March 25: Stes. Maries de la Mer
From Marseille we will journey southwest into the heart of the Camargue to Stes. Maries de La Mer where legend has it that Mary and her party made landfall after their epic journey across the Mediterranean from Egypt. The refugees in the boat were: Mary Jacobe, the mother of James and the sister of the Virgin; Mary Salome, the mother of the apostles James Major and John; Lazarus and his two sisters, Mary Magdalene and Martha; St Maximinus; Cedonius, who was born blind and cured and Sarah, the servant of Mary and Martha. After landing safely, the group built a small oratory in thanksgiving. The disciples wandered off their separate ways. Mary Magdalene went to Ste-Baume, and Martha went to Tarascon. Marie Salome, Marie Jacobe and Sarah remained in the Camargue, and were later buried in the oratory. The tomb of these three saints became a cult object, and has been the attraction of pilgrimages for the past nineteen centuries. They were reburied beneath the chancel during the Barbarian invasions, and then removed and enshrined in 1448 by Good King René. In the 9th century, the oratory was replaced by a fortified church, the Notre-Dame-de-la-Mer. In the 11th century, the monks of Montmajour established a priory here. In the 12th century, the monks rebuilt the church, incorporating it into the town's fortifications. In the 14th century, the projecting machicolations were added to the top, allowing boiling oil and dropped projectiles to be used against attackers.
Anecdote: In the year 869, when the original fortified church was being built under the direct supervision of the Archbishop of Arles, the Saracens raided the town and carried him away. The people of Arles quickly raised the demanded ransom, the Saracens returned with the Archbishop, set him up on the throne with great respect, and parted with the loot. The grateful people only then discovered that the prelate had died while in custody, and the Saracens had respectfully returned a corpse to the throne. In the morning, we will walk to the ancient church to visit the crypt of Saint Sarah before departing in Mary’s footsteps for the Massif St-Baume and our home for the next two nights.
March 26/27: Massif Ste. Baume
   
The next two days will be spent treading the very ground where Mary Magdalene herself supposedly lived, and preached. It was to Ste. Baume, a place historically known as a place of pilgrimage for the worship of the Mother Goddess, that she is said to have come, perhaps to find a home among the priestesses who lived and practiced their ancient faith in this remote region. As legend would have it, it was from here that she founded her early Gnostic Church before withdrawing from public life for the final 33 years of her life. Or did she? Is it reasonable to assume that the same strong, single minded woman who survived the ordeals that myth and legend would have us believe, suddenly abandoned her mission to withdraw as a sorrowful and broken hearted penitent for what amounted to a large proportion of her life? On the other hand, is there another story about Mary with an alternative ending? It is in the heart of this region that we will spend these two days walking the paths through the forests of the Massif Ste. Baume, visiting and meditating at the places sacred to Mary’s life and memory, as we seek to uncover our own answers to this fascinating riddle.
March 28: Les Baux and Beziers
From Ste. Baume, we will journey westward, towards Alet-les Bains. Time permitting, we will visit the ancient fortified hill town of Les Baux before entering the Languedoc where our first stop in Cathar country will be Beziers.
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Les Baux
The village of the Baux de Provence is situated in the heart of the Alpilles on a rocky plateau 245m high. A brilliant view of Arles, the Camargue and the Alpilles can be seen from the lookout points! This immense and superb stone fortress is without doubt one of the "must-sees" on the Provencal tourist trail! The village is officially classified and labeled as "one of the most beautiful villages in France". Its cultural heritage is exceptionally rich, with 22 architectural treasures classified as "Historic Monuments" (including the church, chateau, town-hall, hospital, chapels, houses, doorways... without counting items of furniture and a collection of paintings).
The defensive possibilities of Les Baux led to the site being settled early on in human history. Traces of habitation have been found dating back as far as 6000 BC, and the site was used by the Celts as a hill fort or oppidum around the 2nd Century BC. During the Middle Ages, it became the seat of a powerful feudal lordship that controlled 79 towns and villages in the vicinity. The lords of Baux sought control of Provence for many years and gained a formidable reputation. They claimed ancestry from the Magus king Balthazar and even placed the Star of Bethlehem on their coat of arms. Despite their strengths, the lords of Baux were deposed in the 12th Century. However, the great castle at Les Baux became renowned for its court, famed for a high level of ornateness, culture and chivalry. The domain was finally extinguished in the 15th Century with the death of the last princess of Baux, Alice of Baux.
Les Baux was later joined, along with Provence, to the French crown under the governance of the Manville family. It became a centre for Protestantism and its unsuccessful revolt against the crown led Cardinal Richelieu in 1632 to order that the castle and its walls should be razed. The town was granted in 1642 to the Grimaldis, although administratively the town is entirely French. The title is traditionally given to the heir to the throne of Monaco. The present Marquise des Baux is Princess Caroline of Monaco.
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Beziers
The site of this ancient city has been occupied since Neolithic times, before the influx of Celts. Roman Betarra was on the road that linked Provence with Iberia. The Romans re-founded 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 walls 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 Viscountship of Beziers. 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 Roma, the Via Domitia with the two key bridges over the Orb at Béziers and over the Herault at Saint-Thibery.
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 Trencavels. The Trencavels were to rule for the next 142 years, until the Albigensian Crusades.
Beziers was a Languedoc stronghold of the Cathars whom Catholics determined were heretics and whom they exterminated in the Albigensian crusade. 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 all its remaining inhabitants killed. The commander of the crusade, Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester, was acting on the advice of the Papal Legate to the Crusaders, Arnaud-Amaury, and the Bishop of Citeaux. When the commander asked the monk how they should they treat the inhabitants when they captured the city because not everybody in the city was a heretic -- some of them were good Catholics, the monk famously replied, "Kill them all, God will recognize His own" / "Neca ecos omnes. Deus suos agnoscet." 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.
Leaving Beziers, we will travel southward into the mountains of southwestern France, the true Cathar stronghold, and where we will stay for the remainder of the trip. Turning south from Narbonne, we will follow the river Aude into the hills where we will stay at the quaint mountain inn, Auberge de peyrepertuse in the village of Rouffiac des Corbieres that nestles in the heart of the Corbières beneath the great fortress of Peyrepertuse.
From our hotel over the next two days we will hike to both Peyrepertuse and Querubus, the other great Cathar castle in the immediate area.
March 28/April 1: Alet-les-Bains
From Rouffiac we will journey westward through the heart of Cathar country to the 12th century Templar walled town of Alet-les-Bains and Hotel L'Eveche, our home for the remainder of our visit. The next three days will be spent visiting various important sites of interest in the area such as:
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Carcassonne
We will spend an afternoon in this magnificent walled city that first rose to power and prestige four hundred years before the Albigensian crusade. The largest intact fortress in Europe, and one of the most perfect examples of a medieval fortified city still in existence today, in 1209, Carcassonne was a Cathar city and under the leadership of the youthful Raimond-Roger Trencavel, Count of Carcassonne. Trencavel offered the protection of the city to the thousands being hunted by the crusader army under the command of the notorious Papal Legate Arnaud-Amaury. The crusaders laid siege to the city on August 1, 1209 and captured it two weeks later after the defenders were forced to surrender due to a lack of water. As he did in Bezier, Arnaud ordered his soldiers to show no mercy. Arnaud led his armies against Carcassonne with similar results. What was it about the Albigensian heresy that drove Rome to take such brutal and determined action against the population of this region? Why was the ancient church of L’Eglise de la Madeleine in Beziers the scene of the most brutal massacre, where the medieval and time-honored tradition of sanctuary upon sacred ground was brushed aside on the orders of the Papal Legate?
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Montsegur
Montsegur was the scene of the last heroic stand of the Cathars against the Papal Crusaders in the 13th century, culminating at the end of a yearlong siege and the mass execution by fire of 207 men and women on the morning of March 16th, 1244. From the picturesque village, we will make a leisurely visit to the hilltop fortress with its breathtaking views of the whole region.
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Mirepoix
Situated halfway between Carcassonne and Foix, its name is cited for the first time in the 10th century in a charter granted to the inhabitants by the count of Foix, Raymond Roger and is thought to have Celtic origins. During the crusade against the Albigensians (Cathars) in 1209, Simon de Montfort took the feudal château and the family, who had strong links to Catharism, was dispossessed. Simon de Montfort gave it to his loyal lieutenant, Guy de Lévis, who became Marchécal de Mirepoix. During this era, the town extended from the foot of the château on the right bank of the Hers and was flourishing, with nearly 2000 inhabitants and many shops and industries. In 1279, the barrier at Puivert ruptured, and caused massive flooding that destroyed the whole village, sparing only the château. In 1289, Guy de Lévis decided to rebuild the town on the left bank of the Hers and it was his son who executed the project. The town was reconstructed in the form of a bastide, with a large central square and streets following two perpendicular axes. The city prospered and, in 1317, Pope John XXII made it a bishopric. In 1362, the town was attacked by a band of highway robbers that set it alight. After this great fire, which destroyed the southern part of the town, the centre was refortified with a strong encircling wall and four large gates to protect it. Today, all that remains of this fortification is the Porte d'Aval. On the large central square you can still admire the half-timbered houses supported on wood pillars, creating a magnificent covered arcade. The ends of the joists of the richest houses are sculpted, and the most beautiful sculptures are on the house of the Justice du Seigneur, which became in 1500 the Maison des Consuls, showing women's faces, bearded heads, a tortoise and other fantastical images. The little church of St Maurice, built in 1298 by Jean de Lévis and his wife Constance de Foix, was transformed over time into a cathedral. Today the cathedral of St Maurice has a single nave 48 m long, 24 m high, 22 m wide, a gothic gate and an elegant 60 m high pointed bell tower. Of the cathedrals of Europe, only that of Gerona in Spain has a wider nave. Inside, vandalism and demolitions destroyed many treasures, but you can still admire a tabernacle, a Christ on the cross from the 14th century and seven paintings by Larivière-Vesontius.
The later part of each afternoon will be spent in discussion and meditation about the history of the Languedoc region, and its connection to the Magdalene tradition. Next page >
Travel Details >
For more information or to reserve your place, Laconneau@laconneau.org |
