Mont Saint Michel History

Mont Saint Michel history starts with Mont Saint Michel founding the Bishop of Avranches in 708 after he saw the archangel Saint-Michel thrice in his dreams. After the third time, the bishop of Avranches decided to build the oratory in honor of the archangel. According to legend, the Bishop of Avranches dispatched two religious leaders to search for relics, and they later purchased a piece of wall, a crimson robe, and a slab of marble on which the archangel had set his foot.

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Mont Saint Michel history later changed when the Abbey was expanded to become a place of worship. This step started as an invitation to many monks to start their pilgrimage over to this island. Since the archangel's relics were placed, many faithful pilgrims and great minds started visiting this place and because of this, the abbey had to be reconstructed with many reinforcements to defend the island. The Abbey was attacked in 1204 by the Breton knights under the command of Guy de Thouars and visitors can also look at the vestiges of the One-Hundred Year War.

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The Abbey was transformed into a prison under the rule of King Louis XI and this detention center held prisoners until 1860. During the French revolution, the dissidents were placed in the holding cells in the abbey. Once the prison closed there were 650 prisoners who were transferred to the continent by the French government.

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The Mont Saint-Michel was renovated multiple times, the workshop grounds were renovated in the year 1922 but the pilgrimages returned back in 1966 during the abbey's 1,000-year anniversary. The French government, the owner of the abbey took care of the renovations and the Benedictine monks started residing in the prayer halls and the sisters of the Monastic Fraternity from Jerusalem followed the monks and came to Mont Saint-Michel in 2001.

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An embankment was built in 1879 by the French government to make it easy for the Pilgrims to access the road. The next project started in 1983 as the island's maritime aspects needed restoring and the parking lot had to be removed to build an English channel to let the waters flow freely. In 1979, Mont Saint-Michel was declared a UNESCO world heritage and the monument now gets over 3 million visitors every year.

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