Mont Saint-Michel
History
The Wonder of the West
Mont Saint Michel is one of the mediaeval West's major legacies of its sacred history. Dedicated to Saint Michel in 708 following some miraculous visitations, in 966 it was entrusted by the Duke of Normandy to the Benedictine monks who made the island one of the most important places of pilgrimage in the Christian world, by building on the legend of the founding bishop, Aubert. The monks set about a superhuman construction programme with the works continuing without interruption from the year 1000 to the beginning of the 16th century.
Thus the visitor will gain a comprehensive picture of mediaeval architecture as he explores its many buildings, squeezed on to the tip of the rock. Mont Saint Michel was also an impregnable fortress. Its heroic resistance to the English during the Hundred Years War earned it a symbolic place in the national psyche. The ramparts enclosing the village and the abbey fortifications bear witness to this powerful role. After the conversion of the abbey from the Revolution until 1863, yhr monastery, designated an historic monument in 1874, underwent mmajor restoration work. These works enable visitors to enjoy once again the splendour of a building that men in the Middle Ages saw as the image of Holy Jerusalem on earth.
Architecture
Mediaeval architecture
The abbey of Mont Saint Michel offers a complete overview of mediaeval architecture.
Pre-Romanesque architecture is represented by the church of Notre-Dame-sous-Terre, 10th century, where traditional Romanesque features can still be seen. Very thick walls constructed of small rubblestone and Norman arches (a semi-circular arch, a revival of the Roman style) clad in flat brick. The 11th century offers Romanesque volumes at their fullest in the crypts of the transept and the south side of the nave of the church. The masonry facings are meticulously laid out, in a regular pattern with fine jointing.
The 12th century sought a lighter style of construction and used the pointed arch in the lower north side of the nave. In the Ambulatory (In French "Promenoir", where the monks and laymen could walk), the architects conceived vaults rising over a skeleton of diagonal arches. This innovation was to lead to the birth of the Gothic style. The new process permitted the massive and thick Romanesque vaultings to be replaced by a delicate vaulted structure supported by arches. Since the weight was thus distributed over pillars, larger and larger openings could be made in the walls. The first floor of the Merveille, dating from the 13th century, demonstrates the mastery of this system of construction.
The flamboyant (Refers to the late Gothic period which flavoured decorative curves and reverse curves resembling flames) style 15th century chancel expresses the culmination of Cothis architecture. Since the vaulting rests on fine pillars, supported on the outside by majestic flying buttresses, the sanctuary could be transformed into a space bathed in light.
Saint Michel
Saint Michel of the summits
The Mount, dedicated to Saint Michel in 708, was, with Mount Gargan in Southern Italy, one of the principal places of worship consecrated to the archangel in the West. Devotion to Saint Michel had very special significance in mediaeval religious life.
The archangel Michael had three tasks - he weighed souls in order to separate them into the elect and the damned, he led them to heaven protecting them against lurking demons and lastly, he guarded the gates of Paradise. Thus peaks close to heaven, such as Saint Michel de l'Aiguilhe in Puy and Saint Michel de Cuxa in the Pyrenees, were often consecrated to him, and high chapels above the entrances to a number of important churches were dedicated to him, like Tournus, Vezelay and Saint Benoit sur Loire.
In the 15th century, worship of the archangel acquired a new importance with the creation of the Order of Saint Michel. The 19th century rediscovered the Middle Ages, as the Fremier statue, erected on the top of the spire in 1897, bears witness.