A temple in honor of Bacchus was discovered by the parish priest Guenot in 1689 in the foundations of the old church of Saint-Etienne during the construction of a new bell tower, which shows the importance of this culture in the region.

[6] According to legend, not long before the end of the first millennium a monk named Baudillon brought relics of Mary Magdalene to Vézelay from Saint-Maximin-la-Sainte-Baume.

The full text has not survived, but a contemporary account says that "his voice rang out across the meadow like a celestial organ"[7] When Bernard was finished the crowd enlisted en masse and they supposedly ran out of cloth to make crosses.

[7] On 2 July 1190, the Frankish and English factions of the Third Crusade met at Vézelay before officially departing for the Holy Land.

Girart de Roussillon received by a favor from Louis the Pious and chose in 858 to ensure the perenniality of his possessions by transforming them into two Benedictine communities, respectively male and female: Pothières and Vézelay.

Its status is quite peculiar, for it was affiliated with Cluny, which was exempted until 1744: "by paying the annual fee of one pound of silver to the Holy See, To recognize no chief of order, no diocesan bishop, no prince, no lord whatsoever.

It forms a kind of theocratic republic, detached at first from the Carolingian monarchy, then from the French feudalism, and not preserving, either with one or the other, any connection or relationship of subordination.

[10] After many vicissitudes (revolts, seigneurial conflicts, the fire of 1120 caused by lightning), the narthex or Church of the Penitent Pilgrims was built: it was dedicated only in 1132.

In 1137 the Abbe Albéric signed a charter with the inhabitants that defined the rights of the abbey and the bourgeois: an act of wisdom that was praised In laudatory terms by Bernard of Clairvaux.

Abbé Ponce de Montbossier temporarily restored the abbey to its former privileges of independence ("pote, potestas Vezeliacensis").

At the same time, the city continued its development and was fortified in 1150 with 2,000 meters of curtain wall and the construction of the Holy Cross gate.

After the revolt of 1167, the inhabitants obtained from the monks a written charter which guaranteed them liberties in the region ("libertas Vezeliacensis").

Pope Clement IV launched an inquiry to understand the reasons for such a forfeiture and ordered a solemn verification of the relics of the Madeleine.

On 27 July 1421 the troops of the Duke of Burgundy, Philippe Le Bon, await the army of rescue at Vézelay.

They make their junction with the English contingents of King Henry V, commanded by his brother, the Duke of Bedford, John of Lancaster.

He exhorted the Vezelians to leave the Anglo-Burgundian league and contributed to the rapprochement between Philip the Good and Charles VII and led to the meeting of the Council of Basel in 1431.

The abbey becomes a simple collegiate church, a chapter of canons replaces the Benedictine monks and especially the domain is placed in the hands of commendatory abbots.

Under the influence of Theodore de Beze, the abbey made Vézelay one of the first towns of the region allied to Protestantism.

In March 1569, the town was taken by the Protestant troops of Captains Sarrasin and Blosset, anxious to win a good military position.

[12] At the treaty of Saint-Germain (1570), Vézelay was one of the two towns of the government of Champagne to authorize the Protestants to freely exercise their worship.

Vineyards descend to the edge of the town and produce only white wines, made exclusively of the Chardonnay grape variety.