The town is named after Énimie, who, according to a 13th-century poem by
Bertran Carbonel troubadour of Marseille, When she reached
marriageable age, she did not want to marry, preferring to care for
lepers instead. According to Bertran, she asked God to help her avoid marriage; she was then infected with leprosy. Her father wished for her to be cured and had her taken to be bathed in the waters of
Gévaudan, to no avail. An attempt at
Bagnols-les-Bains was equally unsuccessful, but a river in
Burlats near the
Tarn miraculously cured her disease. However, when she returned home to marry her noble suitor, she was once again infected with leprosy and returned to Burlats, where she was cured once more. This process was repeated a third time, after which it was decided that she must remain in that area. She briefly lived in a cave before starting a
convent and becoming a
nun and eventually died there. When her brother
Dagobert I came to look for relics buried with her to decorate his
Basilica of Saint-Denis, the nuns tricked him, and he ended up finding the relics of Énimie's niece instead. Two monasteries, one male and one female, were built in the area but destroyed by invasions. Stephen,
Bishop of Mende, requested that a
Benedictine monastery be built there, and it was completed in 951. It became a popular pilgrimage destination due to the miraculous story surrounding its founding. During the
French Revolution in 1798, the monastery was destroyed and the town renamed "Puy Roc"; however, this lasted only a short time. Starting in the 1950s, tourism became a major part of Sainte-Enimie's economy. It was recently connected more closely to the rest of France with the construction of the
A75 autoroute. ==Geography==