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Le Puy-en-Velay

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Le Puy-en-Velay or Le Puy is a commune of south-central France, préfecture (capital) of the Haute-Loire département. Population (1999): 20,490.

History

Le Puy was a major bishopric in medieval France, founded early, though its early history is legendary. According to a martyrology compiled by Ado of Vienne and published in many copies in 858, which was supplemented in the mid-10th century by Gauzbert of Limoges (CE), a certain priest named George accompanied a certain Front, the first Bishop of Périgueux, when they were sent to Gaul. Front was added to the list of the apostles to Gaul, traditionally sent out to reorganize Christians after the persecutions that are associated with Decius and Gratian, circa 250. As with others of the group, notably Saint Martial of Limoges, later mythology pushed Saint Front and the priest George back in time, and tells how George had been restored to life with a touch of Saint Peter's staff. The expanding legend of this St. George, which, according to the Church historian Duchesne is not earlier than the 11th century, then makes that saint one of the Seventy Apostles of the Gospel of Luke, and tells how he founded the church of the [civitas] que dicitur Vetula in pago Vellavorum—as Ruessium began to be called during the 4th century—the city "called Vetula in the pays of Le Velay" a document of 1004 termed it (Lauranson-Rosaz, note 89).

Following St. George the founder, later Medieval local traditions evoke a legendary list of bishops at the chief town of the pays of Le Velay: Macarius, Marcellinus, Roricius, Eusebius, Paulianus, and Vosy (Evodius), all of them canonized by local veneration. It will have been from Bishop Paulianus that the Gaulish settlement of Ruessium/Vellavorum received its Christianizing name, Saint-Paulien. An Evodius attended the Council of Valence in 374.

Our Lady of Le Puy

The Christianization legends of Mons Anicius relate that at the request of Bishop Martial of Limoges, Bishop Vosy caused an altar to the Virgin Mary to be erected on the pinnacle that surmounts Mont Anis. Some such beginning of the shrine Christianized the pagan site thatbecame the altar site of the cathedral of Le Puy. It marked one starting-point for the pilgrim route to Santiago de Compostela, a walk of some 600 km, as it still does today. The old town of Le Puy gathered round the base of the cathedral.

The pilgrims came early to Le Puy, and no French pilgrimage was more frequented in the Middle Ages. Charlemagne came twice, in 772 and 800; there is a legend that in 772 he established a foundation at the cathedral for ten poor canons (chanoines de paupérie), and he chose Le Puy, with Aachen and Saint-Gilles, as a center for the collection of Peter's Pence. Charles the Bald visited Le Puy in 877, Odo, count of Paris in 892, Robert II in 1029, Philip Augustus in 1183. Louis IX met James I of Aragon here in 1245; and in 1254 passing through Le Puy on his return from the Holy Land, he gave to the cathedral an ebony image of the Blessed Virgin clothed in gold brocade, one of the many dozens of venerable "Black Virgins" of France: it was destroyed at the Revolution, but replaced at the Restauration with a copy that continues to be venerated. After him, Le Puy was visited by Philip the Bold in 1282, by Philip the Fair in 1285, by Charles VI in 1394, by Charles VII in 1420, and by the mother of Joan of Arc in 1429.Louis XI made the pilgrimage in 1436 and 1475, and in 1476 halted three leagues from the city and went to the cathedral barefooted. Charles VIII visited it in 1495, Francis I in 1533 (CE).

The legendary early shrine on the summit of Mons Anicius that drew so many would seem to predate the founding of an early church of Our Lady of Le Puy at Anicium which was attributed to Vosy who transferred the episcopal see from Ruessium to Anicium. Crowning the hill there was a megalithic dolmen. A local tradition rededicated the curative virtue of the sacred site to Mary, who cured ailments by contact with the standing stone. When the founding bishop Vosy climbed the hill, he found that it was snow-covered in July; in the snowfall the tracks of a deer round the dolmen outlined the foundations of the future church. Snow in July would have been a likely feature of the post-volcanic summer of 535 and 536; the intervention of the deer may be compared to the legends attached to Saints Eustace and Hubert. The Bishop was apprised in a vision that the angels themselves had dedicated the future cathedral to the Blessed Virgin, whence the epithet "Angelic" given to the cathedral of Le Puy. The great dolmen was left standing in the center of the Christian sanctuary that was constructed around it and was re-consecrated as the Throne of Mary. By the 8th century, however, the stone, popularly known as the "stone of visions," was taken down and broken up. Its pieces were incorporated into the floor of a particular section of the church that came to be called the Chambre Angelique, or the "angels chamber."

It is impossible to say whether this St. Evodius is the same who signed the decrees of the Council of Valence in 374. Neither can it be affirmed that St. Benignus, who in the seventh century founded a hospital at the gates of the basilica, and St. Agrevius, the 7th-century martyr from whom the town of Saint-Agrève Chiniacum took its name, were really bishops. Duchesne thinks that the chronology of these early bishops rests on very little evidence and that very ill supported by documents; before the 10th century only six individuals appear of whom it can be said with certainty that they were bishops of Le Puy. The first of these, Scutarius, the legendary architect of the first cathedral, dates, if we may trust the inscription which bears his name, from the end of the 4th century.

Adhemar, bishop of Le Puy was a central figure in the First Crusade. Pope Clement IV was also bishop of Le Puy.

Though the ancient diocese was suppressed by the Concordat of 1801, it was re-erected in 1823.

The architecture

The cathedral of Notre-Dame dates chiefly from the first half of the 12th century. The facade, striped in courses of white sandstone and black volcanic breccia, is reached by a flight of sixty steps, and consists of three orders: the lowest composed of three high arcades opening into the porch, which extends beneath the first bays of the nave; above are three central windows that light the nave; above are three gables one the gable-end of the nave, fdlanked by two openwork screening gables. The south transept doorway is sheltered by a fine Romanesque porch. Behind the choire rises a separate Romanesque bell-tower in seven storeys.

The bays of the nave are roofed by octagonal cupolas, the cupola at the crossing forming a lantern; the choir and transepts are barrel-vaulted. The striking parti-colored is connected to remains of fortifications of the 13th century that separated the cathedral precincts separated from the rest of the city. Near the cathedral, the 11-century baptistery of St John is built on Roman foundations.

Catholic pilgrims starting their journey to Santiago de Compostela gather to be blessed each morning. The cathedral has been a Unesco World Heritage Site since 1998, as part of the "Routes of Santiago de Compostela in France".

Sights

Three miles from Le Puy are the ruins of the Château de Polignac, one of the most important feudal strongholds.

Miscellaneous

Le Puy is famous for a particular strain of green lentils, for its lace-making, and for its green liqueur "Verveine" flavored with verbena.

Le Puy is twinned with the town of Tonbridge, England.

References

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