The Benedictine Monastery of Montmajour enjoyed so many other privileges and bequests that it grew to be one of the richest and most powerful in the whole of France. No wonder the laity were keen to swell its holy ranks and enjoy its privileged security and bountiful board, its immunity from taxation and public service. The amazing contrast to the luxury of the Abbey’s latter days is the legend of the poverty and homelessness of those for whom it was founded.
The story runs, or, as the troubadours say, it is told and said and related, that when Villegis, King of the Goths, who had already dispossessed the Romans of Arles of their last colony in Gaul, surrendered to the Frankish conqueror Childebert, the latter, hunting one day over his newly-acquired territory in the vicinity of Arles, met with some hermits on a lonely mountain-side whose piety and poverty so touched the victorious barbaric King that he founded for them the Monastery of Montmajour.
ARLES
VI
ARLES
It would seem that Arles has been an important city for over two thousand five hundred years. History can give no authentic records of its beginnings, but, as is generally the case with ancient towns in a similar predicament, legend has taken in hand the task of supplying details, and Arles has its legend, which bears on the face of it some elements of probability. Massilia (now Marseilles) has evidence to show that even long before the Phoceans founded their towns in Gaul, Phœnician seamen, the pioneers of navigation, had discovered its natural harbour, round which the town of to-day is built. Interesting relics of these early traders are still in existence; and their successors, the Phoceans, who undoubtedly were on the scene as early as 600 B.C., must have found on their arrival that the advantages of the position had been fully appreciated by the earlier settlers, who had built there a town of considerable importance, but which was then in a declining state.
The inhabitants of Southern Gaul, a Celtic race, had even at that time their capital at Arles, and the semi-historical legend runs that King Nannos, or Nan, was giving a betrothal feast to which all his warriors were invited, in order that his daughter might choose her husband from among them—presumably the custom at this period.
When the feast was in full swing a stranger appeared upon the scene, a handsome young Greek adventurer from Phocea. The Celtic King welcomed him with an unsuspicious cordiality, and invited him to join the festive board, which he did, much to the chagrin of the assembled company. The King’s daughter fell in love with him at first sight and singled him out for high honour, bestowing upon him her heart and hand, to the discomfiture of the native warriors, although her father recognised in her action the guidance of his country’s gods. The lucky Greek received in dowry with his bride the lands lying around the spot where he first landed.