Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine | Page 5

and
that, after the crucifixion, they left the Holy Land in a vessel which
eventually landed them on the western coast of Gaul, not far from the
present city of Bordeaux. They became associated with the mission of
St. Martial, the first Bishop of Limoges, and at a later period Zaccheus,
hearing of a rocky solitude in Aquitania, a little to the south of the
Dordogne, abandoned to wild beasts, proceeded thither, and chose a
cavern in the escarped side of a cliff for his hermitage. Here, meditating
upon the merits of the Mother of Christ, he became one of her most
devoted servants in that age, and during his life he caused a small
chapel to be raised to her upon the rock near his cavern, which was
consecrated by St. Martial. All this is open to controversy, but what is

undoubtedly true is that one of the earliest sanctuaries of Europe
associated with the name of Mary was at Roc-Amadour.
It is recorded that Roland, passing through the Quercy in the year 778
with his uncle, Charlemagne, made a point of stopping at
Roc-Amadour for the purpose of 'offering to the most holy Virgin a gift
of silver of the same weight as his bracmar, or sword.' After his death,
if Duplex and local tradition are to be trusted, this sword was brought
to Roc-Amadour, and the curved rusty blade of crushing weight which
is now to be seen hanging to a wall is said to be a faithful copy of the
famous Durandel, which is supposed to have been stolen by the
Huguenots when they pillaged the church and burnt the remains of St.
Amadour.
That in the twelfth century the fame of Roc-Amadour as a place of
pilgrimage was established we have very good evidence in the fact that
one of the pilgrims to the sanctuary in 1170 was Henry II. of England.
He had fallen seriously ill at Mote-Gercei, and believing that he had
been restored to health through the intercession of the Virgin, he set out
for the 'Dark Valley' in fulfilment of a vow that he had made to her; but
as this journey into the Quercy brought him very near the territory of
his enemies, the annalists tell us that he was accompanied by a great
multitude of infantry and cavalry, as though he were marching to battle.
But he injured no one, and gave abundant alms to the poor. Thirteen
years later, the King's rebellious son, Henry, Court Mantel, pillaged the
sanctuary of its treasure in order to pay his ruffianly soldiers. This
memorable sacrilege had much to do with the insurmountable antipathy
of the Quercynois for the English.
I have before me an old and now exceedingly rare little book on
Roc-Amadour, which was written by the Jesuit Odo de Gissey, and
published at Tulle in 1666. In this, Court Mantel's exploit is spoken of
as follows:
'Les guerres d'entre nos Rois très Chrétiens et les Anglais en ce
Royaume de France guerroyant ruinèrent en quelque façon
Roc-Amadour; mais plus que tous Henri III., Roi d'Angleterre, ingrat
des grâces que son père Henri II. y avait recues, en dépit de son père
qui affectionnait cette Eglise, son avarice le poussant, pilla cet oratoire
et enleva les plaques qui couvraient le corps de S. Amadour et emporta
ce qui était de la Trésorerie; mais Dieu qui ne laisse rien impuni châtia

le sacrilege de cet impie Prince par une mort malheureuse. De quoi lise
qui voudra Roger de Houedan, historien Anglais en la 2 partie de ses
Annales.'
There are early records of miracles wrought at Roc-Amadour. Gauthier
de Coinsy, a monk and poet born at Amiens in 1177, has left a poem
telling how the troubadour, Pierre de Sygelard, singing the praises of
the Virgin in her chapel at Roc-Amadour to the accompaniment of his
vielle (hurdy-gurdy), begged of her as a miraculous sign to let one of
her candles come down from her altar. According to the poem, the
candle came down, and stood upon the musical instrument, to the
horror and disgust of a monk who was looking on, and who saw no
miracle in the matter, but wicked enchantment. He put the candle back
indignantly, but when the minstrel sang and played it came down as
before. The movement was repeated again before the monk would
believe that the miracle was genuine. The poem, which is in the
Northern dialect, and is marked throughout by a charming _naïveté_,
commences with a eulogium of the Virgin:
'La douce mère du Créateur À l'église à Rochemadour Fait tants
miracles, tants hauts faits, C'uns moultes biax livres en est faits.'
The huge, inartistic, but imposing block of masonry that appears from a
little distance to be clinging, after the manner of a