Vezelay - Basilique Sainte-Marie-Madeleine

The Basilique Sainte-Marie-Madeleine is a jewel of Romanesque architecture. The nave was erected within 20 years, from 1120 on, after the preceding church burnt down, with a loss of more than 1000 lifes. The choir and the transept, seen here, were erected 1185 - 1215. They are completed already in gothic style.

The relics of Sainte Marie Madeleine, that had been here since around 1050, made Vezelay to a center of pilgrimage (and the starting point of the Via Lemovizensis).

But in 1279 dominican monks in Saint-Maximin-la-Sainte-Baume claimed to have found the "real" sarcophagus of Sainte Marie Madeleine. Unfortunately the Dominicans found the patronage by Pope Boniface VIII and Charles d'Anjou - and so Vezelay lost it´s importance.
In 1559, during the Wars of Religion, Huguenots looted Vezelay und burnt the relics, that were still in Vezelay. Today there is a golden reliquary in the large, probably carolingian crypt, so obviously at least a part of the relics are still here.

Prosper Mérimée and Viollet-le-Duc saved the basilica, that was a ruin in the early 19th century. When Prosper Mérimée started the renovation of the basilica in 1840, he was 26 years old. This was the first task for the young architect..

The basicila has a length of about 100m, even more than 120, when the narthex is added.

Hugues Delautre could proof in 1976, that the architects of the 12th century "implanted" a very special feature into the building. Each year at noon of the summer solstice when the sun is in the climax, the light from the south windows casts light spots in the middle of the central nave.

Here are more informations and photos about this

vezelay.cef.fr/lumiere.htm