The scriptorium
also known as
the Knights’ room
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A thousand fascinating years , a story of faith, courage and extraordinary human talents and skills have made the "Marvel of the West", a masterpiece and a world heritage site belonging to all mankind. By turns a monastery, a citadel, a prison, the Mont Saint Michel symbolises the eternal struggle of Good against Evil.
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One night in October 708, the Archangel Saint Michael appeared to
Aubert, the Bishop of Avranche, ordering him to build
a sanctuary on Mount Tombe, an island of granite standing in the middle
of the bay.
From the Xth Century, the Dukes of Normandy began constructing a
new Church and in 966 the Benedictine Order
was established on the Mont Saint Michel.
Under their supervision, the Romanesque Abbey was constructed in the
XIth Century.: the construction was to take sixty years.
Partially destroyed by fire, it was rebuilt, with
the help of the French King, Philippe Augustes, in the XIIIth Century:
this construction and those that followed
until the end of the XVth Century display a
new architectural style, soaring skywards
with the help of immense buttresses and
wrought stonework: the Gothic style was born.
Mont Saint Michel was then at its apogee and its
spiritual and intellectual influence was immense throughout the whole
of Christendom.
Kings, princes, dukes, and knights, as well as ordinary men and women, came from all over
France and Europe on pilgrimage to
Mont Saint Michel, "the marvel of the West".
.After this Golden Age, the monastery fell into decline until finally, during the French Revolution in 1789, the last monks were expelled from the Abbey.
Not until 1969 did a new Benedictine community enter the Abbey, leading once more to a
spiritual Rennaissance on the Mont Saint Michel.
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