Travel Guide Connecting

Bielle is an old Gallo-Roman villa. A mosaic, sarcophagi and marble columns attest to this. It was occupied by Lieutenant Publius Grassus under Caesar in 51 BC. In 1154, a magister built the villa as an administrative headquarters dependent on the diumvir of Oloron, which gave its name to the town then promoted to the rank of "capduhl", the capital of the valley. The designation of Villa and Saint-Vivien-de-Bielle in 1355 can then be found in the map of Ossau and then Biela in 1614, at the time of the city's full development between the 15th and 16th centuries. Witnesses of this period are the many houses equipped with mullioned windows and coach gates with family currencies. Long a prosperous religious centre and stopover on the way to Santiago with a hospital built by the monks of the 9th century and an abbey burned by the wars of religion in 1569, Bielle is also known for its jurad when it was capital Capdeuilh, installed in the "ségrary" in 1355, a small vaulted room located in the sacristy of the Saint-Vivien church with a chest with three locks for the jurat of Bielle, Laruns and Sainte-Colome (visit of the city with a guide: inquire at the OT of Laruns).