Vézelay, Church and Hill

韦兹莱教堂和山丘

🇮🇹 France📅 1979 Inscribed

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Shortly after its foundation in the 9th century, the Benedictine abbey of Vézelay acquired the relics of St Mary Magdalene and since then it has been an important place of pilgrimage. St Bernard preached the Second Crusade there in 1146 and Richard the Lion-Hearted and Philip II Augustus met there to leave for the Third Crusade in 1190. With its sculpted capitals and portal, the Madeleine of Vézelay – a 12th-century monastic church – is a masterpiece of Burgundian Romanesque art and architecture.

Insight I

Originally a Benedictine monastery, one of the oldest religious orders in the Latin Church, built on the site of a late Roman villa.

Insight II

Became famous for claiming to hold the relics of St Mary Magdalene, making it the center and starting point of the Second (1146) and Third (1190) Crusades.

Insight III

Later neglected after the discovery of Mary Magdalene’s body at Saint-Maximin-la-Sainte-Baume in Provence, then sacked by the Huguenots and nearly collapsed after the French Revolution.