Timeline

Heritage classified

Key figures

Origin and history

The basilica Notre-Dame de Verdelais came into being in the 11th century, when a chapel was built to house a statue of the Virgin Mary brought back from the Holy Land by Géraud de Graves, a crusader. This place soon became a Marian pilgrimage after miraculous healings, including that of a blind man in 1185. The Grandmontan monks, then the Celestines, expanded the site, which was looted during the Hundred Years' War and the Wars of Religion. The statue, several times lost and found, strengthened local devotion.

In the 17th century, the Heavenly monks rebuilt the church, adding a transept and a monastery, making Verdelais a major sanctuary. Despite the dissolution of their order in 1778 and the unrest of the French Revolution, where the church was closed, the site survived. In the 19th century, the Marist Fathers took over the management, enlarged the basilica with an imposing bell tower, and installed a calvary and a cross path, reviving the pilgrimage.

The basilica, classified as a historic monument in 2000, combines Renaissance and Baroque styles, with a marble altarpiece and a stained glass window offered by Napoleon III. Its bell tower, surmounted by a golden statue of the Virgin, dominates the landscape. The pilgrimage, one of the oldest in France dedicated to Mary, attracted thousands of faithful until the 20th century, including the writer François Mauriac. Today, the site retains its spiritual and heritage role, marked by ex-votos and processions.

The story of Verdelais is also that of his miraculous statue, found in 1390 under the "step of the mule" of Countess Isabelle de Foix-Castelbon, then saved from the flames in 1558 and hidden in a tree until 1605. Couroned in 1856, it symbolizes the resilience of Marian worship. The basilica, raised to the rank of minor basilica in 1924, remains a living testimony of faith and religious architecture in New Aquitaine.

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