Mont-Saint-Michel and its Bay
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How it came to be
Mont-Saint-Michel is a Benedictine abbey and village on a rocky islet in the bay between Normandy and Brittany. According to legend, in 708 the Archangel Michael appeared to Aubert, bishop of Avranches, and told him to build a church on the rock. In 966 a Benedictine abbey was founded on the sanctuary that had been dedicated to St Michael since then.
In the 11th century Richard II, Duke of Normandy, chose the Italian architect William of Volpiano, who placed the crossing of a Romanesque church on the very top of the rock. After a Breton force burned the village in 1204 and the fire spread to the abbey, King Philip Augustus of France paid for its rebuilding, and the Gothic buildings known as La Merveille began that year. During the Hundred Years' War the mount withstood two English sieges.
The abbey was abolished in 1789 and used as a prison until 1863. It was listed as a historic monument in 1862, and 19th-century restorers added the spire in 1897. A causeway built in 1879 sped up the silting of the bay and cost the mount its island character; after a dam was built and the causeway removed, a new bridge with the tide flowing beneath it opened in 2014. The site was inscribed in 1979.
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