Vézelay

Vézelay (French: [vez(ə)lɛ]) is a commune in the department of Yonne in the north-central French region of Bourgogne-Franche-Comté. It is a defensible hill town famous for Vézelay Abbey. The town and its 11th-century Romanesque Basilica of St Magdalene are designated UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

The first traces of human settlement in the vicinity of Vézelay date from 2300 to 2200 BC. near the sources of the Salt Fountains. In the first century and the second century, about two thousand mine shafts were mined in the south-west of Vezelay by about five hundred to eight hundred slaves. These mines allowed the creation of a center of economic activity (market), a refuge and probably a place of pilgrimage.

From the 1st century, the Romans set up the wine-growing on the hill of Vézelay. A temple in honor of Bacchus was discovered by the parish priest Guenot in 1689 in the foundations of the old church of Saint-Etienne during the construction of a new bell tower, which shows the importance of this culture in the region.

In the 9th century the Benedictines were given land to build a monastery during the reign of Charles the Bald. According to legend, not long before the end of the first millennium a monk named Baudillon brought relics of Mary Magdalene to Vézelay from Saint-Maximin-la-Sainte-Baume.

In 1058 Pope Stephen IX confirmed the authenticity of the relics, leading to an influx of pilgrims that has continued to this day. Vézelay Abbey was also a major starting point for pilgrims on the Way of St. James to Santiago de Compostela. This was crucially important in attracting pilgrims and the wealth they brought to the town.

Bernard of Clairvaux preached the Second Crusade at the Council of Vézelay in 1146 with King Louis VII of France. The crowd was so large that a large platform was erected on a hill outside the city. The full text has not survived, but a contemporary account says that "his voice rang out across the meadow like a celestial organ" When Bernard was finished the crowd enlisted en masse and they supposedly ran out of cloth to make crosses. Bernard is said to have flung off his own robe and began tearing it into strips to make more crosses. Others followed his example and he and his helpers were supposedly still producing crosses as night fell.

On 2 July 1190, the Frankish and English factions of the Third Crusade met at Vézelay before officially departing for the Holy Land.

The human settlement on the hill of Vézelay is very anterior to the Benedictine abbey. Merovingian sarcophagi were found in the basement of the church of St. Peter, and under one of them an older sarcophagus. In 2012, a Carolingian wall was discovered, under the cloister of Vézelay.