Hauts Lieux

The great stories

34 long-form stories — Compostela, the cathedrals, the Templars, Brocéliande… — that tie the places on the map together. Each one begins here, free to read; the rest is in the application with the History & Architecture key.

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  Roman Gaul: from Alesia to the first bishopsRome enters Gaul through Marseille and Narbonne, then Caesar takes it in eight years, from Gergovia to Alesia, and writes the story…
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  Mary Magdalene: from the Gospel to Provence, from Vézelay to Saint-MaximinWho Mary of Magdala was, how the West made her the repentant sinner of the boat without sails, and why Burgundy and Provence fought over…
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  Saint Denis, the head he carried and the abbey that made kingsA bishop sent to Gaul around 250 is beheaded near Paris; legend has him pick up his head and walk to his tomb. Over that tomb Genevieve…
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  Saint Martin, or where the word “chapel” comes fromFrom Amiens, where a horseman cuts his cloak in two, to Candes, where the bishop dies on ashes, then from Tours to Chablis and Auxerre…
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  Saint Nicholas, from Myra to LorraineFrom a 4th-century Greek bishop about whom almost nothing is known, the West made the saint of children, sailors, boatmen and prisoners.…
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  The springs that heal: Saint Clair, Saint Odile and the waters of the saintsFrom antiquity to the 19th century, people came to springs in search of healing: for the eyes, to Saint Clair, Saint Odile and Saint Léger…
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  The Tro Breiz, the pilgrimage of the seven founding saintsSeven bishops from across the Channel, seven cathedrals, and the “tour of Brittany” attested by 13th-century wills, the inquiry into Saint…
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  The hermits of Brittany: Gildas, Ronan, Hervé, Efflam and the saints who came from the seaBetween the 5th and the 7th century, Britons from the island of Britain settled in Armorica; their monks and their hermits left their names…
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  The Merovingians: the kings who slept among the saintsFor two and a half centuries, the descendants of Clovis ruled Gaul, dividing the kingdom among themselves, killing one another and having…
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  Saint Michael on the heights: from the Gargano to the Mont, and yesterday's “line”From the cave of the Gargano (c. 490) to Mont Tombe (708), then to Cuxa, Le Puy, the Sacra and the roads of the miquelots, the cult of the…
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  The thaumaturge kings: the Holy Ampulla and the touching for scrofulaA dove bringing the oil for the baptism of Clovis: the legend is not Gregory of Tours’s, it is Hincmar of Reims’s, around 877-878, and it…
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  Charlemagne and Roland: what happened at Roncevaux, and what the song made of itOn 15 August 778, in a pass of the Pyrenees, Basque highlanders destroy the rearguard of the army Charlemagne is bringing back from a…
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  The Ways of St James: from the tomb in Galicia to the four routes of FranceAround 820-830, a bishop in Galicia recognises in a Roman tomb that of the apostle James, and a pilgrimage is born which, from the 10th to…
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  The Normans: from Rollo to William the Conqueror (911-1087)In 911, a Carolingian king at the end of his resources grants a Viking chief, Rollo, "a land running from the Epte to the sea": in three…
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  Cluny: the order that covered Europe before CîteauxBy giving an estate in the Mâconnais “to the apostles Peter and Paul”, William the Pious removes an abbey from every earthly power, king…
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  The Black Madonnas: Romanesque majesties, revolutionary pyres and the mystery of the colourFrom the Velay to the Beauce, from Cerdagne to Marseille, sixteen sanctuaries where a Virgin in Majesty with a black face is venerated…
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  The via Francigena: the road to RomeBefore Compostela, Christendom went only to Rome, “to the thresholds of the apostles”, to pray at the tombs of Peter and Paul. In 990…
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  The pardons of Brittany, Saint Anne and the fountainsA pardon is first of all an indulgence: on the saint's day, in a particular chapel, with mass, procession, banners, relics, fountain…
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  Saint Anthony's fire: the Antonines, the order born of a diseaseA dry gangrene that blackens the limbs and makes them drop off ravages the West for three centuries; it is called the sacred fire, the mal…
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  The Hospitallers of Saint John: healing, fighting, inheriting the TempleBefore it was an order of knights, the Hospital of Saint John was a house of hospitality run in Jerusalem by merchants from Amalfi, which…
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  Saint Bruno and the Carthusians: silence in the mountains (1084-1816)In 1084, a schoolmaster of Reims, Bruno, leaves everything and receives from the bishop of Grenoble a high enclosed valley: the Chartreuse.…
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  The daughters of Cîteaux: how five abbeys covered EuropeTwenty-one monks leave Molesme in 1098 for a marsh south of Dijon; fifty years later, their daughters cover Europe, from Burgundy to…
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  The Templars: from nine knights to the pyre on the Île aux JuifsWhat the Order of the Temple was — soldier-monks, commanderies, a bank — how it grew in Champagne and perished in Paris, and what Philip…
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  Eleanor and the Plantagenets: an empire from Bordeaux to Scotland (1137-1204)In 1137, a fifteen-year-old heiress brings Aquitaine to the king of France; fifteen years later she takes it back and gives it to Henry…
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  The cathedral builders: from Saint-Denis to BeauvaisIn 1144, Abbot Suger consecrates at Saint-Denis a chevet where the wall becomes glass; in a hundred and forty years, from Sens to Amiens…
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  Brocéliande: how a Breton forest became ArthurianA forest the charters call Brécilien, a fountain that makes it rain for the lord of Montfort, and two 12th-century romance writers, Wace…
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  Cathar Country: the good men, the crusade and the last pyreWho the good men were, what they believed, why Rome held them to be heretics, and how, from Béziers to Montségur, a crusade and then a…
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  Saint Louis: the king, the Crown of Thorns and the crusadesA child crowned at Reims at twelve, a Castilian mother who holds the kingdom, a crown of thorns bought back from the Venetians and carried…
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  The bastides: new towns between two kings (1222-1373)In a hundred and fifty years, between the end of the Albigensian Crusade and the heart of the Hundred Years' War, the South-West is covered…
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  The Hundred Years' War: from Crécy to CastillonA disputed succession in 1328, homage reluctantly paid at Amiens, and a hundred and sixteen years of wars broken by truces: Crécy, Calais…
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  The plague and its saints: town vows, chapels and processions (1347-1722)In November 1347, galleys from the East bring the plague to Marseille; within a year it has crossed France and carried off, according to…
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  Joan of Arc, from Domrémy to the pyre at RouenIn two years, a ploughman's daughter from the upper Meuse has the siege of Orléans raised and a king crowned at Reims, then she is captured…
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  The Marian apparitions of France, from Le Puy to L'Île-BouchardShepherd girls, children, a novice, a servant who say they have seen the Virgin, and bishops who investigate, rule or keep silent: from Le…
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  The Wars of Religion: thirty-six years that marked the stonesOn 1 March 1562, in a barn at Wassy, the Duke of Guise's escort kills some fifty Protestants gathered for worship: it is the first day of…