Gironde on the Way of Vézelay to Saint James of Compostela

The Vézelay Way, also known as the Burgundy Way or the Limousine Way (Via Lemovicensis ), runs through Saint-Léonard-de-Noblat and Limoges. Vézelay was a major sanctuary attracting pilgrims from Belgium, Germany, the Ardennes, Champagne and Lorraine, come to venerate the relics of Mary Magdalene.

A number of important sanctuaries lie along its path, such as Saint-Front Cathedral in Périgueux and Saint-Jacques church in Bergerac. The road continues on via Sainte-Foy-la Grande to the Benedictine abbey in La Réole, where pilgrims travelling it crossed the Garonne. It then turns south via Bazas and Captieux across the Petites Landes to Mont-de-Marsan, then on to Roncevalles after crossing the Adour at Saint-Sever.

Sainte-Foy-la-Grande, a 13^th -century bastide town founded by Alphonse of Poitiers, contains a Benedictine priory standing on the banks of the Dordogne, a dependency of Sainte-Foy-de-Conques abbey in Rouergue. A relic of the Saint had been left there, and pilgrims were drawn to the priory to meditate. Notre-Dame church is still standing, and the priests’ house , a large building flanked by a crenellated tower, bears witness to the Knights Templar’s presence in Sainte-Foy, containing a vaulted room, trefoil windows and a Templar cross. The Order ensured the safety of this major crossing point over the Dordogne.

From there, the pilgrims continued on to the bastide town of Pellegrue, where a Saint-André priory had been founded by the Saint-Florent monastery in Saumur in the 12^th  century. In his Guerre de Guienne , the famous chronicler Jean Froissart reported that pilgrims from Flanders returning from Compostela received a warm welcome in the town, which was then in English hands. The Saint-André parish church contains a fine cupola on squinches and its west facade is entered through an unostentatious 13^th -century portal.

The road then makes its way to  Saint-Ferme, a magnificent Benedictine abbey – one of Aquitaine’s great establishments along the Way of Saint James – surrounded by its village. The abbey boasts a number of exquisite 12^th -century capitals (the work of the Saint-Ferme Master), and the transept crossing and nave form a starkly unornamented ensemble highly inducive to contemplation. The abbey still preserves many of its monastic buildings, which stand around a paved courtyard.

Next along the way is the little Romanesque church in Saint-Sulpice-de-Guilleragues and its 15^th -century chapel, partly overgrown by the cemetery. Recent restoration work has returned the gothic painted decoration in the chancel to its former glory, along with paintwork from the 18^th  century in the chapel and from the 19^th century paintwork in the nave.

Then comes  Roquebrune, where the Knights Templar founded a commandery on top of a hill around 1170 in order to keep watch over the ford across the Drot. Some of the commandery’s buildings are still standing: the commander’s residence and the hospital buildings now house the town hall. Just next door is the little Saint-Jean-Baptiste church, its flat chevet typical of military orders’ architecture.

The next stop-off,  Saint-Hilaire-de-la-Noaille,  was the seat of a priory and a Saint-Jacques hospital founded by the Benedictine monks of La Réole. The Romanesque church preserves its historiated Romanesque capitals on the Romanesque door opening on to the north of the nave. A prayer cross still stands today on the Monségur road. By way of prayer, one lifted the stone for a moment, holding it over a trough dug directly out of the ground.

The pilgrims then arrived in La Réole  and hastened to pray at the Saint-Pierre priory church, a huge edifice remarkable for its late 12^Th  or early 13^th -century chevet, its 14^th -century low transept, bell tower and doorway, and its nave, which was rebuilt in the 17^th  century. The former Benedictine priory  (early 18^th  century) has a southern facade overlooking the Garonne Valley, with a fine double spiral stairway, stairwell and superb ironwork (gates and rails) created by Blaise Charlut.

On the other side of the Garonne, the road leads to Bassanne and the Moulin de Piis, one of the oldest fortified mills in Gironde, which has recently been restored and continues to take in pilgrims today. Next stop is Pondaurat, which contains a commandery of the Antonine Order, mentioned in the Gascon Rolls in 1254. The church was remodelled in the 19^th  century and is surrounded by monastic buildings, now private property, a magnificent mill that once belonged to the monastery, and a superb mediaeval bridge spanning the Bassanne. The Antonine monks, who were reputed to be able to cure “Saint Anthony’s fire”, protected and lent their aid to pilgrims on the road.

CDT33 - Bernard Lamarque

The pilgrims then made their way to Bazas, leaving the town’s picturesque square with its 16^th  and 17^th -century arcaded houses to worship in Saint-Jean Cathedral, an edifice built in the 13^th  and 14^th  century on the model of the great gothic cathedrals of northern France. Much of the cathedral was destroyed by the Huguenots (1577-1578), but its doorways – the finest examples of gothic statuary anywhere in Gironde – were spared, and pilgrims still stand lost in wonder before them.

From the Gisquet gateway, where a Saint-Antoine hospital once stood, taking in pilgrims and other travellers in bygone days, the road leads on through Cudos and Bernos-Beaulac to Captieux, once a fortified village where the Saint-Antoine priory stood, last stop-off before the long and perilous journey across the Landes, along sandy roads cutting through landscapes of pine forests and heaths stretching as far as the eye could see.