The Island Abbey

First published in Options, The Edge, on May 9, 2015

Mont St Michel is separated by a few hundred meters of water and centuries in time from the modern world.

Only about a half-kilometer separated me from the island, with its stone ramparts and mossy buildings and steeples, yet it might as well have been a gulf of centuries. I stood on the mainland, my feet rooted firmly in the 21^st century, and within sight was the island abbey of Mont St Michel, which belonged to a different era altogether, a medieval fragment that had withstood the passage of time and modernity, embedded as irrevocably in the past as the rock island was rooted in the seabed.

Time had slipped slowly, and almost imperceptibly by, as I left the modern suburbs of Paris, and headed towards the northern coast of France.  The lush colours of autumn were gently brushed over the rural landscape of wheat fields and poplar trees, with their grey foliage in the breeze, the smell of freshly-harvested hay bales, upturned leaves turning silver by the roadside.  There were small somnambulent villages, neat and tidy looking, with cobblestone streets, boulangeries, patiserries and small grocery shops that flashed by. All that was needed was a woman with a parasol or a man in a beret to complete what could have been an Impressionist painting.

Time slipped further by at the coast, shedding the hectic modern world for fishing villages with slate roofs and wooden piers, fishing boats in the harbour, the salty tang of the sea and narrow, colourful houses jostling against each other.  And then, there in the distance, was the improbable mirage of Mont St Michel.

It has been said that the residents of neighbouring Brittany often rue that the Couesnon River took a wrong turn, for it demarcates the two provinces. Had it been a little to the right, the offshore island with its history would have been part of Brittany, rather than Normandy.  The island stands at the mouth of the river, once separated from the mainland, but since connected by an artificial causeway.

Mont St Michel is one of the most visited tourist sites in France. It is featured on biscuit tins, postcards and various other merchandise.  It was inscribed on the UNESCO World heritage listing in 1979, being quoted as “a technical and artictic tour de force, having had to adapt to the problems posed by this unique natural site.” More than just technical artistry, Mont St Michel is also wreathed in the legends and mists of history, imbuing it with a character beyond mere rock and building.

Legend has it that the Archangel Micheal appeared in a dream to the Abbot of St. Aubert, the bishop of Avranches, a small prefecture of Normandy, in the year 708AD. The Archangel commanded the Abbot to build a church on the rocky offshore islet.  This happened three times, with the Abbot repeatedly ignoring the order until the Archangel burned a hole in the Abbot’s skull with his finger.  

That was the beginning of the church on the island, which had been used for centuries before by various occupying powers because of its strategic location.  It was naturally defended by the tides and shifting sands. Its height gave it a natural vantage point over the surrounding countryside, and it was difficult to attack.

Building on the island was no mean feat, as the seas feature a very large tidal variation. At low tide, there are treacherous quicksands around the island, so it could only be approached during the high tide, yet the massive stone buildings testify to the fortitude of the builders and the incredible effort it must have taken.

In the evening light, it looked ethereal, a tall thin spire atop a mass of buildings that seemed to have grown out of the rock itself, with only a few lights dimly lit.  In the morning, I would visit the island.

It was a brooding morning, with turbulent clouds in the sky.  It was only a short walk to the island over a modern man-made bridge. Up close, its mass became apparent, a towering massif of weathered stone, indistinguishable from the rock of the island itself.  Up the walkway, past the large-mouthed 15-century iron cannon used by the English in an unsuccessful siege of the island during the Hundred Years war.

The lower reaches of the island contained the village, stone buildings on either side of the steep walkway.  Initially there was the Abbey, which then attracted tradespeople, so that, over time, a small village was established here, to minister to the needs of travellers, as well as for protection, given the natural defense of the island.  The sturdy stone buildings were occupied by confectioners’ shops, cafes, souvenier shops, bars and restaurants – the stuff of modern touristic commerce, for the island attracts several million visitors a year.  Of particular interest was a shop selling an omelette from a traditional recipe, a piece of the island’s history. There was also a small chapel dedicated to Joan of Arc, the maiden warrior of France who was burned at the stake by the English in 1431.

It was early in the morning, but later in the day, the narrow streets would be crammed with tourists.  The street led towards the abbey, for this was the order of things: man below, heaven above.  A broad sweep of stone steps led up into the alleys of the massive stone building, leaving below, the noisy, lowly matters of commerce.  

There were increasingly spectacular views of the tidal flats around the island. The artificial causeway had affected the natural flow of currents, causing a silt buildup, and threatening Mont St Michel into becoming a peninsula, thus in 2014, a multimillion dollar dam on the Couesnon River was completed and the causeway was demolished and replaced by a bridge, in the hope of restoring the natural flow of water around the island.

The abbey was a massive affair of stone that reared vertically skyward; gargoyles and fanciful creatures in stone sprouted from the walls.  There was a permanent population of only two dozen people on the island all year round. Until very recently, monks and nuns of the Benedectine Order had more or less permanently inhabited the island right back to the 10^th/11^th century.  The massive Romanesque building of the Abbey dated back to this period, an improvement of the small church originally built by the Abbot.

It was gloomy within, despite high ceilings and windows of coloured glass. There was once a large population of monks in the Abbey, for the dining area was vast, with a barrel-vaulted ceiling, and a quiet meditative garden within the cloisters.  Flights of stairs led to the ramparts which commanded a view of the sea and the mainland below.  Soaring upwards from the abbey was the central spire, pointing heavenward. It was mounted with a statue of St Michael at its summit.  Originally the statue, dating to 1897, was made of copper.  It was replaced by the present statue, which is 2 meters high, gilded and lifted to its present position by helicopter in 1987.  Traditionally, St Michael is depicted bearing a sword and a set of scales. 

The abbey was a complex of several levels, with stairs, corridors, rooms and chambers. It was not so much built on, as wrapped around, the protruding rock of the island.  There was a room used by the monks for copying texts, a study, a funeral parlour, an infirmary and chapels. In the kitchen area was a large wooden rotating wheel with a chain dangling downwards, a contrivance used to haul up supplies and food from boats that came from the mainland.   On one of the walls was an engraving of the Archangel Michael punishing the Abbot for disobeying him in building the church.

The conditions that made Mont St Michel a difficult place to attack, also meant the reverse: that it was a difficult place to escape from.  After the Reformation, the importance of the Abbey faded and it became a prison for political prisoners in the 19^th century. The cloisters and vast rooms of the Abbey proved to be peculiarly suitable as a prison, the walls being impenetrable, the tides and quicksands around the island making escape almost impossible. The rich furnishings of the Abbey, which included tapestries, frescoes and paintings were lost during the French Revolution in the 18^th century and when it was used as a prison, which continued until 1863. 

Today, it contains a number of museums, although the whole island is arguably a museum, a shard of medieival history and belief encapsulated in the Abbey and the village.  For the monks who lived here during the past centuries, it was a refuge, a place of security and faith, apart from the tumult of daily secular rural French life. For the prisoners incarcerated here, it must have been particularly galling, for they could see and smell freedom just a short distance away.  

I walked back into modern France, while streams of tourists made their way in the opposite direction, across the narrow gap of sea separating our modern lives from the time capsule of Mont St Michel, the legacy of medieval times encapsulated in stone.