Place de la Basilique, Vézelay, France
Basilica of Sainte-Marie-Madeleine de Vézelay
A hilltop Romanesque masterpiece in Burgundy where the Second and Third Crusades were launched, housing relics of Mary Magdalene and famous for its luminous carved tympanum.
Vézelay sits on a hill in the middle of Burgundy, and the basilica on its summit has been pulling people upward since the eleventh century. The monks claimed to hold the relics of Mary Magdalene, and that claim — accepted by popes and pilgrims alike for centuries — made Vézelay one of the most important pilgrimage sites in medieval France. Bernard of Clairvaux preached the Second Crusade here in 1146. Richard the Lionheart and Philip Augustus met here to launch the Third in 1190. Thomas Becket excommunicated his enemies from this church. The building itself is one of the great works of Romanesque architecture. The narthex tympanum, carved around 1130, shows Christ sending the apostles out to evangelize the world, surrounded by the peoples of the earth depicted with a wild medieval imagination. Inside, the nave is remarkable for its alternating light and dark voussoirs — the arches striped in cream and brown stone — and for the light that pours through the clerestory windows. At the summer solstice, patches of sunlight trace a line down the center of the nave floor at noon, an effect that may have been designed intentionally. Viollet-le-Duc restored the basilica in the nineteenth century when it was near collapse, and his work saved it.
Diocese: Archdiocese of Sens-Auxerre
Style: Romanesque
What to See
The tympanum in the narthex is the main event. Christ sits in the center, enormous, sending rays of power toward the apostles, while the outer archivolt shows the peoples of the world — some with animal heads, some with enormous ears, arranged according to medieval geographical imagination. Spend time with it; there is more detail than one viewing can absorb. Inside, the nave capitals are carved with biblical scenes and are worth examining individually — binoculars help. The crypt below the choir holds the Magdalene relics in a modern reliquary. Walk to the back terrace behind the apse for a panoramic view across the Burgundy countryside that explains why someone built a church on this particular hill.
Pilgrim Notes
Vézelay is in northern Burgundy, about two hours by car from Paris or reachable by train to Sermizelles-Vézelay station with a connecting bus. The town is small and walkable — you climb the main street to the basilica at the top. The church is open daily and free to enter. The Fraternités Monastiques de Jérusalem, a monastic community, staffs the basilica and offers sung prayer throughout the day — the noon Office is particularly beautiful. Vézelay is also a starting point for the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela, and you will see occasional pilgrims with backpacks and scallop shells heading south. Visit in late spring when the hilltop is green and the tourist crowds have not yet arrived.