Saint Guilhem the Desert

Saint-Guilhem-le-Désert is a commune located in the Hérault department in the Occitanie region in France.

Its inhabitants are called the Sauta Ròcs (the Saute Rocks).

The village enters the ranking of the association "The most beautiful villages of France"
The village, which has retained its medieval appearance, is heavily invested by trade linked to tourist activity.

The toponym "dau Desèrt" dates back to the time when the land was devegetated by the farming practices of the too many inhabitants of the village. All forms of vegetation were used for livestock feeding or heating. These subsistence peasant practices lasted until the beginning of the twentieth century, when agricultural abandonment occurred due to the rural exodus, allowing vegetation to grow again in the surrounding area.

In 804, the Count of Toulouse and Duke of Aquitaine Guillaume (Guilhèm in Langue d'Oc) founded an abbey in a place in the Hérault valley that was then far from any human presence, a "desert", the valley of Gellone. The abbey was called Gellone Abbey, or, after his death in 812, William's Abbey, and became the Abbey of Saint-Guilhem after his canonization in 1066.

The relic of a piece of the True Cross attracted the devotion of many pilgrims and the abbey became a very important pilgrimage stopover. An agglomeration developed around the abbey.

In the Middle Ages, the abbey was located on the territory of the diocese of Lodève while the nearby abbey of Aniane, founded around 782 by a relative of William, belonged to the diocese of Maguelone.

During the French Revolution, the commune was provisionally called Verdus-le-Désert4.

This village was ranked the second favourite village of the French in 2012 among the 21 other villages present in the competition.

Bertrand Frcv