Martyrium of Saint Denis, Montmartre

The hill of Montmartre became a place of popular pilgrimage after a chapel was erected by the people of Paris, around 475, where Saint Denis, the first bishop of Paris, was martyred. In the ninth century, the chapel, which had become ruined, was rebuilt. Archaeological excavations indicate that many Christians were buried in Montmartre. Their bones were gathered in a quarry on the side of the hill: the Martyrium or champ des morts. Construction work during the 16th century exposed a staircase leading down to a crypt with three graves marked with a cross and ancient inscriptions. This discovery led people to believe that this was the site where Saint Denis and his companions had been beheaded and buried. The abbesses of Montmartre Abbey erected the Sanctum Martyrium Chapel and new monastic buildings around the crypt. On August 15, 1534, in the Martyrium, Ignatius of Loyola, Francis Xavier, Pierre Favre and four other companions pronounced their religious vows of poverty and chastity, and promised to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem.