 |
|
Royal Convent - St Maximin
Anyone who is talking about top pilgrimage sites often means country inns (hostelleries) and convents too. The first one to welcome the believers, the other one to maintain places of worship. Thus, the most prestigious is undoubtedly attached to the basilica of Saint-Maximin. So, from the fifth century, Marseilles Cassianites settled a first monastery in the valley of Saint-Maximin. The Benedictines who replaced them are expelled after the invention of Mary Magdalene’s relics and the monastery is entrusted to the Dominicans in 1295. The new monastery and basilica will be built simultaneously. It was in expansion or restoration until the eighteenth century during which the “Hostellerie” will be built, the current City Hall. The monks were driven away during the Revolution. The convent became a prison under the Terror period. The Dominicans left definitively St. Maximin in 1957.
|
