City Culture
The region of Montpellier, like all the shores of the Mediterranean between the Alps and the Pyrenees, is a very old land of settlement and passage. On the old prehistoric background, Phoenicians, Greeks, Iberians, Ligurians and Celts have left a more or less important imprint. Rome will be the last crucible of these multiple influences. From 123 BC, Languedoc became a Roman colony. Major actor of the conquest, the consul Domitius marks the country by creating the road that bears his name, the Domitian Way. Until today, it is still this east-west axis uniting Italy with Spain which structures the exchanges and the life of the region.
Montpellier was born in 985, south of this old route and north of the Salt Road. A strategic situation since the future city settles on Cami Roumieu or Roman Road which passes between the two roads. The Count of Melgueil (Mauguio) gives Guilhem, a lord installed in the middle valley of the Herault vis-a-vis the Viscount of Beziers, a manse (agricultural field) on Mons Pestelarium. The donation text even lets us know the name of the serf who exploits it: Amalbert. On the other hand, the etymology of the place remains mysterious. Many hypotheses have been put forward - including a poetic, but improbable Mount Young Girls -. Montpellier, on this point, keeps its mystery, even if the most serious hypothesis evokes the strategic position of the hill: the mount of the lock. The development of the estate goes hand in hand with that of the house of Guilhem. From the first part of the eleventh century, the latter becomes more powerful than that of the Counts of Melgueil. Flattering alliances illustrate this rise in power of the Lord of Montpellier: Guilhem VII wife in 1156 a descendant of Hugues Capet, Mathilde of Burgundy and Guilhem VIII, in 1174, married Eudoxie, niece of the Emperor of Byzantium.
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