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Location Information:
Mont
Saint-Michel (English: Saint
Michael's Mount) is a rocky tidal
island and a commune in Normandy,
France. It is located approximately
one kilometer (just over a
half-mile) off the country's north
coast, at the mouth of the Couesnon
River near Avranches. The population
of the island is 41.
Mont-Saint-Michel was used in the
sixth and seventh centuries as an
Armorican stronghold of
Romano-Breton culture and power,
until it was ransacked by the
Franks, thus ending the
trans-channel culture that had stood
since the departure of the Romans in
AD 460.
Before the construction of the first
monastic establishment in the 8th
century, the island was called "monte
tombe". According to legend, St.
Michael the Archangel appeared to
St. Aubert, bishop of Avranches, in
708 and instructed him to build a
church on the rocky islet. Aubert
repeatedly ignored the angel's
instruction, until St. Michael
burned a hole in the bishop's skull
with his finger.
The
mount gained strategic significance
in 933 when William "Long Sword",
William I, Duke of Normandy, annexed
the Cotentin Peninsula, definitively
placing the mount in Normandy. It is
depicted in the Bayeux Tapestry
which commemorates the 1066 Norman
conquest of England. Harold, Earl of
Wessex is pictured on the tapestry
rescuing two Norman knights from the
quicksand in the tidal flats during
a battle with Conan II, Duke of
Brittany. Norman Ducal patronage
financed the spectacular Norman
architecture of the abbey in
subsequent centuries.
In
1067, the monastery of
Mont-Saint-Michel gave its support
to duke William of Normandy in his
claim to the throne of England. It
was rewarded with properties and
grounds on the English side of the
Channel, including a small island
located to the west of Cornwall,
which was modeled after the Mount,
and became a Norman priory named St
Michael's Mount of Penzance.
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