Vincent Bridges

By Vincent Bridges, co-author of A Monument to the End of Time

Perhaps the most famous necropolis of the medieval era, the Alyscamps (from Elisii Campi or Elysian Fields) owed its fame to St. Trophimus. Built outside the city walls, as were all Roman cemeteries, and along the Via Aurelia, the main road to Italy and Rome, the Alyscamps was a perfect location for secret meetings. St. Trophimus soon attracted a following and in the year before he died, probably 52 CE, he invoked a blessing on the cemetery. Christ himself attended the ceremony and left the imprint of His knee on a sarcophagus lid. Burial at Alyscamps became so desirable that bodies were shipped from all Europe for burial in its holy grounds. The 12th century chronicle of the Pseudo-Turpin informs us that the peers of Charlemagne, Roland and the other fallen heroes, were transported with great difficulty to the Alyscamps.

Arles therefore is ground zero for whatever version of Christianity it was that swept the region in those early years. If we are looking for the origin of those seditious pages in stone, then Arles is a likely place to look. In Mystery of the Cathedrals, the enigmatic alchemist Fulcanelli directs us here, to Arles, the Alyscamps and to the Cathedral of St. Trophime in particular, with several tantalizing references. He points out to us a rose cross ankh on a sarcophagus lid at St. Honore in the Alsycamps and bids us pay close attention to the tympanum on the Great Portal of St. Trophime.
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