Mont-Saint-Michel, The Mount of Marvels Quiz

Answer: Italy

Monte Gargano is situated on the Gargano promontory in the southern Italian province of Foggia which extends into the Adriatic Sea. The coastal areas of Gargano are rich in fine beaches and are consequently popular with tourists. The highest point at 1,065m is Monte Calvo. Most of Gargano's upland areas fall within the Gargano National Park which was founded in 1991.

Answer: Tombelaine

A small islet with a silhouette resembling the Sphinx, Tombelaine has been many things. It has been used by hermits (monks seeking solitude), as a place of exile, as an English garrison during the Hundred Years War, as a bird sanctuary and during the 1920s it was even considered ideal for development with villas, hotels and a casino. Thankfully, the project failed and Tombelaine was bought by the French state in 1933.

Answer: The archangel Michael

The Archangel Michael appeared in the dreams of Bishop Aubert over a number of years and his requests were always resisted. This was until the angel lost his patience and touched Bishop Aubert on the head, his finger burning a hole through the bishop's skull... Apparently he took notice after this and work on the earliest shrine, a grotto, began on the mount shortly afterwards! The hebrew name MI-KA-EL (Who is like God?), comes from a question asked of Lucifer by the nameless archangel after Lucifer had dared to claim to be God's equal.

In the Book of Revelation, after casting out the dragon, the question became the name of the victor.

Answer: Charlemagne

Charlemagne, Charles the Great or Carolus Magnus is considered to be the father of Europe. Born c.742 - 28th January 814, he was a Frankish king who became the head of an empire that covered the greater part of western and central Europe. He was beatified at Aachen in 814 by Pope Benedict XIV and canonized in 1166 by the anti-pope Pascal III. Charlemagne has his principal shrine in Aachen Cathedral, Germany.

Answer: Quicksand

For all its fortifications, Mont-Saint-Michel has the best of natural defences. King Harold can be seen rescuing knights from the 'tangue' during the war between William, Duke of Normandy and Conan II, Duke of Brittany on the Bayeux Tapestry. Who knows how many soldiers or pilgrims have their graves in these quicksands? In my opinion the best description of these dangers can be found in the words of Victor Hugo as anyone who has read Les Miserables will agree...it ends "Sinister obliteration of a man". Chilling stuff indeed.

Answer: Romanesque

Romanesque architecture is readily identifiable through its use of massive walls and large semi-circular arches, a stark contrast to the gothic style which used thin, high walls with pointed arches. For all their substance, romanesque buildings are frequently unstable and incapable of supporting a vaulted ceiling and this is why the gothic choir has a vaulted ceiling but the romanesque nave has a Norman barrel-vaulted ceiling.

In their enthusiasm to rebuild the choir in the gothic style, the monks of the 16th century almost demolished the romanesque nave.

It is possible to see today at the south side of the apse the beginnings of gothic arches.

Answer: Saint Benedict

Saint Benedict was born in what is now Umbria, Italy in AD 480. He is one of the patron saints of Europe (the other being Saint Cyril) and also of students. His religious writing, known as the Rule of Benedict, was adopted by many religious communities throughout the medieval period. These writings became the most important of their kind in western christendom.

Answer: The scriptorium or library

From one of the greatest libraries of the medieval world we can still see some 200 surviving manuscripts of various forms, some at the abbey itself and others at its workshops in Avranches. There were copies of works by Plato, Seneca and Ovid and Aristotle's treatise on logic. Housed in two towers, the Tour de l'Horloge, they were all destroyed when the towers collapsed in 1300. On the 6th of June 1944, over 3,000 of the abbey's original charters, priceless documents, were destroyed when St Lo was bombed as part of the Normandy landings.

Answer: Knights

La Merveille was a feat of engineering unsurpassed in its time, mainly because of the position on the rock on which it has been built. The eastern wing comprises three dining rooms on three floors. At the bottom was the almonry for the underlings, above that a room called the Salle des Hotes and at the very top, the superb refectory.

At the base of the western block was a large storeroom, above that the Salle des Chevaliers and at the top, the beautiful cloister. The Merveille represents the social hierarchy of the time. Those people who worked and produced were at the bottom; those who fought and defended the population at the centre; and those who prayed for everybody's souls at the top... How things have changed!

Answer: The flying buttress

The gothic choir reaches a height of 25 metres at its highest point. The final vault has keystones decorated with the arms of the abbot, Jean III de Lamps, who was responsible for the completion of the work on this new choir. Because buildings in the gothic style had rather thin walls they had a tendency to be out of plumb and this, combined with the lateral forces bearing down on them from the roof, frequently led to collapse. To counter this, flying buttresses and counter-forts were constructed to support these fine walls.

The counter-forts were often surmounted by highly decorated pinnacles that not only added a certain aesthetic but also provided additional weight to secure the masonry beneath them.

Answer: The Huguenots

The Huguenots were members of the Protestant Reformed Church of France and were followers of the writings of John Calvin. This was a period of decline for the abbey on Mont-Saint-Michel. In one attempt to take the abbey in 1591, over 100 Huguenot swordsmen were killed in a massacre after being lured into La Merveille by an inhabitant of the mount.

By this time the Benedictine order on the mount was beginning to fall apart. Many of the monks no longer knew Latin or Greek, most had forgotten their vows of chastity, the taverns of the village were populated with drunkards and the buildings were neglected and fell into disrepair. In 1622, other Benedictines from St Maur moved in to impose reform but they too failed and the Benedictine order on the mount ended with Cardinal de Montmorency-Laval.

Answer: A prison

Although the mount has always had its prisoners, it was not until the reign of Louis XI that the mount lived up to its moniker of the 'Bastille by the sea' when he sent his fillettes there in 1472. A fillette was a narrow cage made of wooden bars that were re-inforced with metal, and hung from the ceiling. It was a particularly cruel form of torture to be imprisoned within a fillette. Prior to this the mount had housed english prisoners of the Hundred Years War and even before this, small cells known as 'oubliettes' were used to punish monks who did not respect and live up to their vows and those who were deemed delinquent.

In 1863, Napoleon III, president and emperor, closed the prison despite protests from the inhabitants who made their living from it. Over the centuries, the total number of prisoners that were incarcerated on the mount is unknown, but it is estimated that in the seventy years or so from the French Revolution through to its closure, the prison had held 14,000 people. Numbers of those that died during their imprisonment are unknown.

Answer: Saintly relics

At the maximum, the abbey was said to possess some 246 relics that represented 150 saints. These included a pierced skull, said to be that of Bishop Aubert, still displaying the 'print' of the archangel's finger although this is actually believed to have been caused by a benign cyst - the bishop was known to have had a large lump on the right hand side of his head.

Other relics included a tooth from Saint John the Baptist, a finger from Saint Vincent, a piece of Christ's rib, a few tufts of hair belonging to Saint Francis and even a lump of coal believed to have come from the oven used by Saint Lawrence!

Answer: 1874

The first of these saviours of the mount arrived there in 1835 whilst it was still a prison. This was the young architect Viollet-le-Duc. When he left, he had in his possession eleven watercolours and a plan for a spire. In 1841 the head of Monuments Historique, Prosper Merimee, visited the mount.

The main restoration work began in 1879 under the control of the architect Edouard Corroyer but the work was not completed until around 1897 with the construction of the spire that can be seen today with its golden statue of Saint Michael at the pinnacle.

Answer: False

Unbelievably, the abbey at Mont-Saint-Michel is actually the third most visited tourist site in France after the Eiffel Tower and the chateau at Versailles. The mount was placed on the UNESCO World Heritage list in 1979 and receives upwards of 3.5 million visitors each year, most of whom are foreigners and (which came as a surprise to this author who has made the journey many times) only one third of whom make the journey to the abbey at the summit.