Mont Saint-Michel: Heaven watching over France

One of Europe's most unforgettable sights, Mont-Saint-Michel has been a holy island for over a thousand years, a quiet witness to every political regime. A monastery, pilgrimage site, architectural marvel and UNESCO World Heritage Site, the "Wonder of the West", placed under the gaze of Saint Michael the Archangel, is a meeting place between God and man. The archangel is celebrated annually at the Mont during the Saint-Michel triduum from September 29 to October 1.

Unsplash/André Ouellet

Reasons to believe:

In 708, Aubert, Bishop of Avranches, had a dream in which he saw the Archangel St Michael, who designated the rocky islet called Mont Tombe as the place to build a shrine to his name. Doubting the authenticity of this message, Aubert did not act immediately. On his third visit to the bishop, Saint Michael put his finger on Aubert's head. The mark left by the angel can still be seen on Saint Aubert's skull, preserved in the Basilica of Saint-Gervais in Avranches.

In the Middle Ages, the natural site on which the village and abbey were built was very inhospitable and extremely difficult to access. However, nothing could stop the spiritual, cultural and economic development of the community of Mont-Saint-Michel, which seemed to be blessed.

Mont-Saint-Michel has remained surprisingly protected from many perils: despited being poorly armed, it was spared the Norman raids in the 10th century, withstood the siege by the English during the Hundred Years' War, and the covetousness of the Huguenots during the Wars of Religion in the 16th century. It is remarkable that the site has remained French and Catholic throughout the centuries.

Similarly, the twelve fires that have been recorded at the Mont over the years have all resulted in very limited damage, despite the limited technical resources of the emergency services and the water supply.

The number of miracles (particularly healings) reported by successive generations of pilgrims is impressive.

The abbey, turned into a prison during the French Revolution, rose from the ashes in the 19th century in a providential move. Since 709, apart from a few decades, the Mont has retained its original vocation as a monastic community and place of pilgrimage.

The medieval builders overcame the rugged topography of the site to create this architectural wonder. The gravity-defying Gothic abbey is a technical feat: the two three-storey buildings are supported, as if by a miracle, by the slope of an 80-metre-high rock. This vertiginous wing is nicknamed the Marvel.

The small community founded by Saint Aubert in the 8th century and the stunning monastery that now welcomes tens of thousands of pilgrims in the same space are without compare.

Summary:

In 708, Saint Aubert, bishop of Avranches, had a dream in which he saw the archangel Saint Michael, who asked him three times to found a sanctuary in his honour. The first community the saint founded shortly afterwards consisted of a few canons (note: originally, a canon was a cleric living with others in a clergy house or, later, in one of the houses within the precinct of or close to a cathedral or other major church and conducting his life according to the customary discipline or rules of the church) whose main desire was to withdraw far from the world, to the "desert": the rock, cut off from the mainland, was ideal for their contemplative life. On October 16, 709, the first chapel was dedicated, in a small, rudimentary building.

Despite the geographical remoteness of the rock, a pilgrimage soon sprang up, as devotion to the Archangel Saint Michael was very popular at the time. In 780, a Frankish monk by the name of Bernard became the first known pilgrim. In the end, it didn't take long for people to establish a spiritual and human presence on Mont-Saint-Michel. In the middle of the 9th century, the Vikings attacked the Cotentin region and committed acts of violence, but the Mont unexpectedly held out.

In the following century, Richard I of Normandy had the brilliant idea of asking Benedictine monks to replace the canons of Normandy and found a new monastery on the rock. By the end of the 10th century, the Abbey of Mont-Saint-Michel had become a reality. From then on, the site became a regional, then national and European shrine: the monks took care to preservemore and more holy relics. They arrived from all over the world. The abbey was regarded as a vast reliquary, on a par with the most important shrines in the Christian world.

At the same time, successive generations of architects, braving the particular natural conditions of the site, succeeded in erecting buildings of rare beauty. In 1023, work began on the Romanesque church, which was completed more than half a century later. The "Marvel" gradually replaced the old buildings.

In addition to their own way of life, with its rules, schedule and tasks, the monks had to manage the flow of pilgrims and the economy of the village built at the foot of the abbey. It is extraordinary to observe that the local inhabitants survived the Black Death of 1348 to an incredible degree. Similarly, during the Hundred Years' War, English attempts to occupy the Mont did not last long. In 1462, Louis XI visited the Mont and created the Order of Saint-Michel for the nobility. Wars did not get the better of the Mont. Nor did the political and religious upheavals.

In 1523, Jean de Lamps, the last abbot to have been elected by his monks, died. He was replaced by a man appointed by the king. This marked the beginning of the "commission" system, which ruined the life of the community for almost 150 years. In 1615, the end of the abbey was feared when Henri de Lorraine, a great aristocrat, was appointed abbot of Mont-Saint-Michel at the age of 16 months! Unexpectedly, a wind of reform blew through the religious world, and the old customs were restored at the Mont in 1622, although the abbots of Mont-Saint-Michel remained appointed by the sovereign until the end of the 18th century.

The Age of Enlightenment, bringing intellectual and institutional difficulties (in 1766, Abbot Loménie de Brienne was rapporteur for the commission of regulars in charge of abolishing religious communities in France that were deemed too "fragile"), and the French Revolution did not extinguish the great reputation and attraction of the Mont. By 1800, the prestige of the medieval abbey was a distant memory (the monastery had been turned into a prison), but the French state never abandoned the place.

Against all odds, monastic life resurfaced at the Mont in the second half of the 19th century, after more than 70 years of religious disaffection. Only three men were responsible for this revival: the architect Viollet-le-Duc, who visited the Mont in 1835, Napoleon III, who closed the prison, and the architect Édouard Corroyer, who was in charge of the restoration. Mont-Saint-Michel was listed as a historic monument in 1874. The years that followed were paradoxical: while a wave of anticlericalism swept France in the nascent Third Republic, the monastic infrastructure was being brilliantly restored. The task was immense: in 1817, the cellar, guesthouse and infirmary built in the Middle Ages collapsed one after the other, and in 1834, the Mont suffered the twelfth fire in its history.

The public authorities clearly understood the tourist and cultural interest of the site. The rock was soon linked to the mainland by a dyke and, thanks to the development of the railways, the French were once again taking to the prestigious pilgrimage route. An architectural masterpiece and a spiritual beacon, by 1900 the Mont was part of the collective memory of the French people. The twentieth century, and the beginning of the twenty-first, saw further development and modernisation of the "Marvel", the site and its surroundings (land reclamation).

On August 6, 1897, the large statue of the archangel Saint Michael was installed at the top of the spire of the abbey church, in an uncharacteristic move for officially-secular France, who thus paid homage to the prince of the heavenly militia.

But the restoration of monastic life remains the most surprising fact at a time that is indifferent to religion: in 1965-1966, the Mont's millennium festivities were celebrated with great pomp. In 2001, the brothers of the Monastic Fraternity of Jerusalem moved to the Mont to replace the last Benedictines, who in turn gave way to the Saint-Martin community in 2022.

Mont Saint-Michel is a unique place in the world, small in size but of universal religious, cultural and symbolic scope.

Patrick Sbalchiero

Beyond reasons to believe:

The staggeringly beautiful location of Mont-Saint-Michel with its breathtaking bay adds to its worldwide spiritual and cultural significance.

Going further:

Mont St. Michel (Classic Reprint) by Kenyon Cox, Forgotten Books (July 2, 2012)

More information:

Le Mont Saint-Michel: The History and Legacy of France’s Most Famous Island Commune by Charles River Editors, CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform (April 21, 2017)
Video Mont Saint Michel seen from a drone