The little town was transformed by the well-published discovery on 12 December 1279, in the crypt of Saint-Maximin, of a sarcophagus that was proclaimed to be the tomb of Mary Magdalene, signaled by miracles and by the ensuing pilgrim-drawing cult of
Mary Magdalene and Saint
Maximin, that was assiduously cultivated by
Charles II of Anjou, King of Naples. He founded the massive Gothic in 1295 with the blessing of
Boniface VIII, who placed it under the new teaching order of
Dominicans. The founding tradition held that relics of Mary Magdalene were preserved here, and not at
Vézelay, and that she, her brother
Lazarus, and a certain Maximinus fled the Holy Land by a miraculous boat with neither rudder nor sail and landed at
Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer, in the
Camargue near
Arles. Maximinus is venerated as St Maximin, a name shared by the 3rd-century
Maximin of Trier and the 1st-century martyr,
Maximinus of Aix, whom medieval legend conflated with the later Maximin; the conflated Maximin was added in the discussed medieval period to earlier lists of the
Seventy Disciples. After landing in the Camargue, Mary Magdalene came to
Marseille and converted the local people. Later in life, according to the founding legend, she retired to a cave in the Sainte-Baume mountains. She was buried in Saint-Maximin, which was not a place of pilgrimage in early times, though there is a
Gallo-Roman crypt under the basilica. Sarcophagi are shown, of St Maximin,
Ste. Marcella,
Ste. Suzanne and
St. Sidoine (Sidonius) as well as the reliquary, which is said to hold the remains of Mary Magdalene.
Genetic testing of some of the hairs in the reliquary confirmed that it was the hair of a woman of possible Jewish ancestry, but do not confirm the identity of the source of the hair. Construction of the basilica began in 1295. The crypt was complete when the church was consecrated in 1316. In it were installed a fourth-century
Gallo-Roman funerary monument and four marble sarcophagi, whose bas-reliefs permit a Christian identification. The
Black Death in 1348, which killed half the local population, interrupted the building campaign. It was not taken up again until 1404, and the sixth bay of the nave complete by 1412. Work continued until 1532, when it was decided to leave the basilica without a finished west front or portal or bell towers, features that it lacks to this day. The plan has a main apse flanked by two subsidiary apses. Its great aisled nave is without transept. The nave is flanked by sixteen chapels in the side-aisles. ==Geography==