Close to Périgord and the Dordogne valley, Rocamadour is at the heart of the Parc naturel régional des Causses du Quercy [de; fr] , a regional nature park.

[6]: 119 The locality L'Hospitalet, overlooking Rocamadour, has a name from espitalet which meant small hospital and has Latin origin hospitalis.

The chief of them is the pilgrimage church of Notre Dame (rebuilt in its present configuration from 1479), containing the cult image at the centre of the site, a wooden Black Madonna reputed to have been carved by Saint Amator (Amadour) himself.

According to local legend it was a copy of Durandal, the sword wielded by the hero Roland, which he hurled from him after the Battle of Roncevaux Pass to prevent its falling into the hands of the Saracens, and which came to rest in Rocamadour.

An oppidum perched on the heights of the Alzou valley, downstream from Tournefeuille, is perhaps linked to the fight of the Gauls against the Roman troops during the Gallic war.

Documents mention that in 1105 a small chapel was built in a shelter of the cliff at a place called Rupis Amatoris, at the limit of the territories of the Benedictine abbeys of Saint-Martin at Tulle and Saint-Pierre at Marcilhac-sur-Célé.

The 12th-century book Livre des Miracles written by a monk from the sanctuary illustrates that Rocamadour had already become famous as a place of pilgrimage.

(The body was burned during the French Wars of Religion and today only fragments of bone remain, on view in the crypt of Saint-Amadour.)

[11] Subsequently, during the French Wars of Religion, the iconoclastic passage of Protestant mercenaries in 1562 caused the destruction of religious buildings and their relics.

Captains Bessonie and Duras would draw, for the benefit of the Prince of Condé's army, the sum of 20,000 pounds from everything that made up the treasure of Notre-Dame since the 12th century.

The site's gravity-defying churches and Black Madonna statue remain a spiritual draw for both Catholic pilgrims and for visitors who practice earth-based or New Age religions, being drawn to stories of Rocamadour's "strange energies" and pre-Christian origins.

[14] A legend supposed to explain the origin of this pilgrimage has given rise to controversies between critical and traditional schools, especially in recent times.

According to the founding legend, Rocamadour is named after the founder of the ancient sanctuary, Saint Amator, identified with the Biblical Zaccheus, the tax collector of Jericho mentioned in Luke 19:1-10, and the husband of St. Veronica, who wiped Jesus' face on the way to Calvary.

Driven out of Palestine by persecution, St. Amadour and St. Veronica embarked in a frail skiff and, guided by an angel, landed on the coast of Aquitaine, where they met Bishop St.

The name of Amadour occurs in no document previous to the compilation of his Acts, which on careful examination and on an application of the rules of the cursus to the text cannot be judged older than the 12th century.

It is now well established that Saint Martial, Amadour's contemporary in the legend, lived in the 3rd not the 1st century, and Rome has never included him among the members of the Apostolic College.

The untrustworthiness of the legend has led some recent authors to suggest that Amadour was an unknown hermit or possibly St. Amator, Bishop of Auxerre, but this is mere hypothesis, without any historical basis.

Rocamadour inspired 20th-century Latin American novelists Julio Cortázar and Giannina Brashi who lived in France for some time and wrote in Spanish about immigrants, expatriates, and tourists.

In Cortazar's opus "Hopscotch", the sad heroine La Maga has a baby boy named Rocamadour who dies in his sleep.