La Muse - Vaudois museum

La Muse is the Vaudois museum of the Luberon, and also the headquarters of the Association for Vaudois and Historical Studies of the Luberon (AEVHL), a secular cultural organization whose members are interested in the history of the Vaudois and, more broadly, the Luberon. It holds a substantial collection of documents related to this religious minority, made available to researchers, history enthusiasts, and the general public.

The exhibition hall welcomes visitors, but even outside opening hours, a series of outdoor panels remains accessible. These panels present the origins of the Vaudois movement, its spread across Europe (Germany, Italy…), but also to South Africa and America, as well as the traces it left in the Luberon and the Monts de Vaucluse.
Valdism, religious persecution, and the 1545 massacre are the focus of a permanent exhibition.

Access to the Vaudois Memorial, located on the ruins of the old village, is waymarked, with several panels along the path leading up to the orientation table atop the castle ruins.

Finally, La Muse brings together the publications issued by AEVHL, including its journal La Valmasque, as well as a major documentary archive devoted to the history of the Vaudois.

The Vaudois followed the teachings of Valdès (or Peter Waldo), a wealthy merchant from Lyon who founded, in 1170, a religious movement known as the Poor of Lyon. Excommunicated by the Church at the end of the 12^th century, the Vaudois nevertheless continued to expand, particularly toward Italy and Austria. Large communities formed in the Piedmont region.

It was in this region that Provençal lords recruited families to repopulate lands and villages abandoned after successive crises: famines, epidemics, and pillaging. In 1532, the Vaudois officially embraced the ideas of the Protestant Reformation.

The Mérindol massacre, in 1545, was ordered by the Parliament of Aix against the Vaudois of the Luberon who had converted to Protestantism. This violent repression caused around 3,000 deaths and led to the destruction of 24 villages, including Mérindol, Cabrières-d’Avignon, Lourmarin, Puyvert, and Lauris.