Val d’Aran

We continued on to Saint-Bertrand-de-Comminges a little further into France, a little medieval fortified village on a hilltop, and the seat of the former Diocese of Comminges from at least the 6th century until the French Revolution.

We parked at the foot of the hill and climbed up past the fortifications to pass through a gate into the old “city”. Finally we found ourselves in front of the (former) Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Saint-Bertrand-de-Comminges, mostly built in the 12th and 14th centuries, with a few later additions.

Behind the altar lays the shrine of St Bertrand, originally known as Bertrand de l'Isle-Jourdain, who was raised in the late 11th century to become a knight but instead became a priest and ultimately bishop of what was then known as Lugdunum Convenarum for nearly 50 years. In this time, Bertrand built the cathedral, adopted pope Gregory VI’s reforms regarding the morality and spirituality of clergy and laity, and revived the city that would later bear his name. At around this time, the city also became a stopping point for pèlerins on their way across southern France to Santiago de Compostela.

We had a drink and ice creams in a cafe on one of the winding, narrow streets that spread out from the cathedral at the top of the hill, before heading to the local Musée de Archéologie.

The recently refurbished museum is housed in the former Gendarmerie, and features a small fraction of the treasures of Lugdunum Convenarum unearthed from the surrounding fields in the plains around the current hill top village.

Lugdunum Convenarum is thought to have been founded as a colony by Pompey in 73 BC when returning to Rome after campaigning in what is now Spain. Over the next couple of centuries, this became a large and important settlement with a population of some 30,000 (today’s village has some 230!), part of the Roman province of Gallia Aquitania (and later Novempopulania). At this time, the Val d’Aran fell within the area administered from Lugdunum Convenarum. The city declined in the 5th century, as the (Western) Roman Empire crumbled under attacks from Vandals and other Germanic tribes.

Legend has it that Herod Antipas (the local ruler of Galilee in at the time of Jesus’ ministry) and his wife Herodias were exiled there under the orders of the Emperor Caligula in AD 39, until their deaths a couple of years later (but there is much confusion between this Lugdunum (Convenarum) and the Lugdunum which is now the French city of Lyon.

Extensive excavations have taken place all around Saint-Bertrand from the 16th century onwards, but more rigorously from the early 20th century, and continue to the present day.

Key finds now on display in the archeological museum include part of a reconstructed Triumph or monumental marble sculpture celebrating a victory in Spain or Gaul - although the specifics of the victory or victories being celebrated are the subject of some debate and speculation. The current view is that the Triumph was most likely associated with Proconsul Marcus Valerius Messalla and his conquest of the Aquitani people, including the Convenae (from which the second part of Lugdunum Convenarum’s name comes).

There are also many other objects from the daily lives of those who lived here. There are also a number of funerary monuments, the inscriptions on which enable much detail to be gleaned about the individuals being commemorated and their lives.Read more