Mount St. Michel & St. Malo
We docked in Saint Malo at 6:45AM. It was dark and there was a gentle rain falling. The temperature was hovering in the low 50’s with the promise of brightening later in the day. We boarded our buses for Mount St. Michel at 8:30 for the hour’s drive to the holy mountain.
Mount St. Michel sits on the transitional zone between Brittany and Normandy. The site is built in this remote place since St. Michael as an archangel was supposed to protect humans from the ravages of Satan who inhabited peripheral spaces. The earliest evidence that we have that Mt. Michael was being visited as a place of pilgrimage is the 8th century. Shrines to the Archangel exist in special places in Europe. There is one at Monte Gargano in Italy, one at St. Michael’s Mount in Cornwall, and one off the coast of Kerry, Skellig Michael. The cult of Michael located these places at what the medieval mind considered the periphery of the known world.
The monastery became great under the Benedictines, the largest and oldest order of Christian monks. The life of the monk is threefold: to pray, work and study. Much of the great literature and history from the Classical period was saved from oblivion in the monastic scriptorium where the monks spent countless hours copying manuscripts.
In addition to their work in the scriptorium they were required to pray seven times per day. Their day consisted of collective prayer which was always done as chant. The Benedictines were principally responsible for the development of Gregorian chant. The great achievement of the monastic community was their ability to have this superb Romanesque building erected atop this sheer rock precipice standing more than 80 meters above the mud flats. The new gilded statue of St. Michael was placed in its present site by helicopter in the past five years.
This afternoon we left the ship for a pleasant stroll around the lovely city of St. Malo. The walls of this city and indeed many of the homes are built with the same stone as Mt. St. Michel. Most of us walked the ramparts which still surround the city. This is the best location – three stories above the city – to get as picturesque view of the city as possible.
I particularly enjoy the state of preservation of the lovely old gates which pierce the city walls, and the great gate of St. Vincent is my favorite. Despite the apparent antiquity of St. Malo, the city was virtually destroyed during bombing in 1944. It has been lovingly rebuilt stone by stone and today it is virtually impossible to tell that it is not the original fabric.
