And, in the end, he actually visited it in the 12th century with a brief stop back two centuries more when young William the Bastard's grandfather, Richard II, established the abbey on the mount, in 1020. This, then, over 40 years before The Bastard became The Conqueror and ruled England.
Actually, there was already a wooden monastery and small settlement on the mount. It had been established sometime during the 8th century. During the Abbacy of Mainard, sometime prior to 1009, all of it had “been reduced to ashes” according to Corroyer2.
Hildebert II, the fourth Abbot of the place, rebuilt it with wood. According to Corroyer Hildebert seems to have used wood only in order to house his monks until a grander plan could be conceived. He seems to have convinced William's grandfather to bankroll (of course there were not yet such things as banks) a much grander affair made of granite. The center of the granite Croisee conceived for the grand abbey church was to be built first on the conical peak of the mount, supported by foundation columns. The very first stone, then, announced an abbey church like nothing built before.
For some three years until his death, Hildebert laid the foundations for the church that would descend the mountain on all sides. Radulphe de Beaumont, the eighth abbot, raised the four grand pillars of the church choir and the vault arch above them.3 Ranulphe, the ninth abbot, erected the nave. The porch and the sepulchre. In 1112 the wooden living spaces were once again “reduced to ashes”. The opportunity was taken to put the church construction aside and to rebuild the cloisters with granite, as well. The first version of the whole edifice was completed in 1135.
But the times were fractious. In 1138, the inhabitants of the nearby town of Avranches stormed the mount, and, yes, “reduced [the flammable parts of the living spaces] to cinders”.4
All of this time, Mont St. Michel was still a sentimental favorite of the Dukes of Normandy. Those dukes, of course, were also the Kings of England for all they spent much of their time in their French dominions.
After the death of Charlemagne — whose life began at almost the same moment as the first humble wooden Mont St. Michel appeared — his empire had been divided again and again over centuries among ever more petty rulers. Among the more powerful chunks in France were Normandy, Burgundy, Anjou and Aquitaine. The nominal king of France was actually quite weak without the support of these duchies. When Henry Curtmantel ascended to the duchy of Normandy, in 1530, the English throne had been captured by his cousin Stephan de Blois. French King Louis VII was savvy enough to see an opportunity to regain some power at the cost of the young duke by allying with his competitors. Henry swore fealty rather than take losses but soon after married Louis's estranged wife Eleanor, the ruler of vast Aquitaine.
In 1154 Henry took the English crown back for the Duchy of Normandy. That same year, the monks of Mont St. Michel elected the most famous abbot the Mont would ever have: Robert de Torigni. He was a highly cultured man. His chronicles will provide history with a great deal of its information about France and England at the time.
Growing restive with too much peace, the new king raised an English army, in 1158, and returned to France to conquer all of those who had cowed him.
On the death of Geoffrey, count of Nantes, the brother of Henry, king of England, in the month of June, king Henry himself crossed over into Normandy in the month of August, and he had a conference with Louis King of France, near the river Epte, respecting peace, and proposed that a marriage should be contracted between his son Henry and Margaret, the daughter of the king of the French. After oaths had been given on both sides, the king came to Argentan; and on the feast of the nativity of the blessed Mary [8th Sept.], he gave orders that the whole of the Norman army should be at Avranches on the festival of St. Michael [29th Sept.], to advance against Conon, earl of Brittany, unless he would surrender to the king the city of Nantes, of which he had taken possession.5
Avranches, the reader may recall, was a town a short distance from Mont St. Michel. The Feast of St. Michael was the abbey's highest feast celebrating it's patron saint. Henry arranged to join the feast.
The most resplendent train in Henry's army belonged to a Saxon (an astonishing thing at the time) called Thomas à Becket. Becket had climbed the social ladder early on by taking holy orders and becoming highly serviceable to the church. He then abandoned his religious responsibilities in order to befriend and be highly serviceable to the young English king.
Henry never would finish off the French king, for all the available opportunities, for he was a true knight and would be true to his oath of fealty. Louis, in turn, would realize that he was in no position to push the fealty thing. Henry was the king of England, then, and the most powerful man in France bar none.
During the years that followed, Henry renewed the family relationship with the Abbey of Mont St. Michel. He visited many times. At least once with King Louis. Henry clearly liked keeping an eye on the old boy.
1 Adams, Henry. Mont Saint Michel and Chartres (Privately printed, 1904. First public edition, 1913, 1935).
2 Corroyer, Edouard. Description De L'abbaye Du Mont Saint-Michel (1877). 11. “Du temps de Mainard, second Abbé de ce monastère (991-1009), le feu ayant pris denuict, es maisons d'aucuns habitans de ce Mont, les flammes passèrent jusques dans cette Abbaye et la réduisirent en cendres...”
3 Ibid., 12.
4 Ibid., 14 “...les habitants d'Avranches révoltés, et qui réduisit en cendres le monastère et la ville.”
5 Stevenson, Joseph. The Church Historians of England (1856). IV.ii.745-6.
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