VEZELAY, a village of France, in the department of Yonne, 10 m. W.S.W. of Avallon by road. Its population, which was over Io,000 in the middle ages, was 378 in 1931. The history of Vezelay is bound up with its Benedictine abbey, which was founded in the 9th century under the influence of the abbey of Cluny. The acquisition of the relics of St. Magdalen, soon after its founda tion, began to attract crowds of pilgrims, whose presence enriched both the monks and the town which had grown up round the abbey and acknowledged its supremacy. In the 12th century the exactions of the abbot Artaud and the refusal of the monks to grant political independence to the citizens resulted in an insurrection in which the abbey was burnt and the abbot mur dered. During the next fifty years three similar revolts occurred, fanned by the counts of Nevers. During the 12th century Vezelay was the scene of the preaching of the second crusade in 1146, and of the assumption of the cross in 1190 by Richard Coeur de Lion and Philip Augustus. The influence of the abbey began to diminish in 128o; its decline was hastened during the wars of religion of the 16th century.
Vezelay stands on a hill on the left bank of the Cure, and still preserves most of its ancient ramparts, notably the Porte Neuve, consisting of two massive towers flanking a gateway. The famous
church of La Madeleine dates from the 12th century and was restored by Viollet-le-Duc. It consists of a narthex, with nave and aisles ; a triple nave, without triforium, entered from the narthex by three doorways; transepts; and a choir with triforium. The oldest portion of the church is the nave, constructed about 1125. Its groined vaulting is supported on wide, low, semicircular arches, and on piers and columns, the capitals of which are finely carved. The narthex was probably built about 1140. The central entrance, leading from it to the nave, consists of two doorways, divided by a central pier supporting sculptured figures, and is surmounted by a carved tympanum. The choir and transepts are later in date than the rest of the church, which they surpass in height and grace of proportion They were doubtless built in place of a Romanesque choir damaged in a fire in 1165. A crypt beneath the choir is perhaps the relic of a previous Romanesque church which was destroyed by fire in 1120. The west façade of the Madeleine has three portals; that in the centre is divided by a pier and surmounted by a sculptured tympanum. The upper portion of this front belongs to the 13th century.