Le Mont Saint Michel :: Architecture Descriptive History French Essays

Le Mont Saint Michel Le Mont Saint Michel is a rocky cone shaped island or islet located just off the North West coast of France in the gulf of Saint Malo. It is home to one of France’s greatest tourist attractions named Le Mereille, this brilliant eleventh century gothic style church is often simply called Mont St Michel. What transforms this fairly typical gothic church into one of the most striking buildings of the world, and the destination of so many visitors over the course of the past twelve centuries, is its magnificent, almost arrogant location. The Church of Mont Saint Michel was constructed in the eleventh century as a gothic masterpiece. It was constructed using Granite stone; however some of the cloisters are made of lime stone. The island upon which it sits is separated by approximately one kilometer of waves from the mainland at high tide. At low tide, however, it is separated from the mainland by approximately one kilometer of sand. Before a causeway was built in 1879, the only approach to the Mont was by foot over this causeway. However this crossing was no easy task and a poorly timed crossing could easily end in drowning by the sudden changing tides. The island is about one kilometer in diameter and about 80 meters high, jutting defiantly above the ocean. The steep cliffs that ascended from the crashing surf and the treacherous tides that whipped around the island, combined with the legend that it was the island where the souls of the dead congregated; make the site an unlikely place to build. Neither legends nor danger were a match for the overwhelming curiosity of a forbidden place. In the early eighth century a bishop from the near by town of Avranges named Aubert made the crossing. After finding it safe enough he started frequenting the island which seemed to be an escape from civilization for him, and a place where he could meditate un-intruded. During meditation one day on the island the archangel Michel visited Aubert and convinced him to build a church on the island. In 708 the modest chapel began construction on the island, many buildings have come to rise and fall on the island since then. The first major construction on the island started in the year 1020 and was completed in 1135. In time structural problems arose with the building, therefore in 1170 Abbot Robert de Toringy started building a new facade on the side of the church.