In the Middle Ages, Ménerbes was an already fortified village that marked the southern limit of the Comtat Venaissin, a papal state attributed to the Church in 1215 during the Council of Montpellier. Saint-Louis, returning from the Crusades, stopped there, at the Saint-Hilaire priory, occupied by monks until the French Revolution. In 1793, Ménerbes, like all papal territories, was annexed to France.