Basilique Sainte-Marie-Madeleine, Saint-Maximin-la-Sainte-Baume, Burgundy, France
If you arrive at the right time of day, you’ll see nuns filing into the Basilique Sainte-Marie-Madeleine (Basilica of Mary Magdalene) for service and song. Like the monks who also belong to the church, they are dressed in white robes, calmly moving about the grand and towering space. A Benedictine abbey church, the basilica is decorated with detailed sculptures and great works of Romanesque art and architecture. The columns lining the church’s nave and choir are covered in scenes carved from the Bible.
Vézelay and its church were a key point in the journey for pilgrims passing through to Santiago de Compostela in Galicia in northwest Spain—a factor that put pressure on the church to expand in its early days. Long known as the Abbey of Vézelay, the church came under the title basilica only in 1920.
The history of the basilica has plenty of ups and downs. Relics from Mary Magdalene were brought to Vezelay in 882, items that would provide mystery and drama in coming years. In 1120, a major fire ravaged the nave, and another in 1165. In the early centuries, the church was in the middle of local attacks and revolts, at least in one instance over raised taxes to cover church expansions.
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