Our Lady of Le Puy

Black Virgin, Gate of the Way · Le Puy-en-Velay (France)

In Le Puy-en-Velay, on the volcanic rock of Velay, a Black Virgin is venerated in one of the oldest Marian shrines in France, the starting point of Via Podiensis towards Santiago.

Origin and history

The tradition speaks of the apparitions of the Virgin on Mount Anis, in the first Christian centuries, with miraculous cures that would have moved to build a church there; these narrations are transmitted as popular piety and are not documented by contemporary sources.

Historically, the Marian cult of Le Puy has been attested to since the Middle Ages: around 999 Pope Silvestre II granted privileges to the bishop, and during the XIXth-12th centuries the sanctuary was one of the great pilgrimage centers of the West. The original image, according to tradition a gift from Saint Louis (13th century), was destroyed in 1794; the present one replaces it. In 1860, the monumental statue of Notre- Dame de France was erected with the bronze of Sebastopol cannons.

It should not be confused with Our Lady of the Puy de Estella (Navarra), a different Spanish advocation.