Mont-Saint-Michel celebrates its thousandth anniversary this year, when the architects laid the first stone of the church which will become the emblematic monument that we know. From May 20, an exhibition retraces its history.
Under the sign of the archangel, for a thousand years, like a gift from heaven, Mont-Saint-Michel (Manche) is the kingdom of solitudes, but also of crowds. Two and a half million visitors visit it each year. Its history would have begun in 708, when the Archangel Saint-Michel ordered the Bishop of Avranche to erect a sanctuary on the sacred mountain, in the middle of the seas.
The Mount is a UNESCO World Heritage Site
Over the centuries, the monastery always rises a little more towards the sky. From Romanesque crypts to Gothic spires, the architects of the Middle Ages outdid themselves. “The Mount was built in a thousand years and the centuries have accumulated the constructions, the buildings and this abbey, two enormous buildings built on the north side (…) has been nicknamed the wonder”, explains François Saint-James, lecturer at the Center des Monuments Nationaux. A monument from the top of which the archangel contemplates a thousand years of history. Since 1979, the Mount has been listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
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