ten, without comprising the islands of Guernsey and Jersey, over which
it still held a titular sway. In it were included the district of the
Côtentin; the city of Coutances; the towns of St. Lo, Granville,
Carentan, Vallognes, and Cherbourg; twenty-four smaller market towns;
four archdeaconries; twenty-two rural deaneries; ten abbeys; twenty-four
other convents; and five hundred and fifty parishes. The chapter
consisted of twenty-six canons and eight dignitaries.
[206] The following are the words of Robertus Cenalis upon this
subject:--"Carolo, Ludovici XI. germano, quorundam procerum principumque
suggestione ducatum Normanniæ non precario, sed vi impense ambiente, cum
via sibi per posticum episcopalis domus aperta esset, rex idcirco
indignatus incolis qui a fide defecerant, cavit decreto suo in poenam
criminis, quod funditus a solo everterentur civitatis moenia, quæ nulla
vel pretii, vel precum sollicitatione restitui potuerunt."--Cenalis then
proceeds to say,--"Habet in templi sui meditullio merito suspiciendum
spectaculum miræ architecturæ contextum, e cujus abside si quis lapillum
dejecerit, nunquam a puncto designato ultra citrave dimovebitur instar
laternæ vitreæ in sublime erectum: vitream arcem merito dixeris, opus
sane venustum et elegans. Urbem præterea insigniter ornat aquæductus ad
milliaris semissem, ingenti impensa et opera arcuatim suppositis
fornicibus longo ductu protensus, cujus artificii ope civitas alluitur
et rigatur. Denique si moenibus conclusa foret, quis vetet civitatem
illam Constantinopolim Neustriæ maritimæ appellari!"--_Gallia
Christiana_, p. 863.
[207] In the following part of the description of the church of
Coutances, considerable use has been made of a manuscript dissertation,
kindly communicated by M. de Gerville to the author, who only laments
that the limits of this publication would not allow him to insert it
entire.
[208] Among the _Instrumenta Ecclesiæ Constantiensis_, p. 218.
[209] "Hujus tamen temporibus incoepta et ex parte constructa est
Constantiensis ecclesia, fundante et coadjuvante Gonorra comitissa,
auxiliantibus etiam canonicis, reditibus medietatis altaris ad tempus
operi concessis, cooperantibus quoque baronibus et parochianis
fidelibus, quod usque hodie contestantur aliquot ipsorum nomina
insculpta lapidibus in ecclesiæ arcubus."--_Gallia Christiana, Inst._ p.
218.
[210] "Anno igitur Dominicæ Incarnationis, MXLVIII. duodecim tantum
diebus ipsius anni restantibus, id est IV idus Aprilis, indictione II,
venerandus Gaufridus post Robertum Constantiensis episcopus Rotomagi
consecratur, nobilium baronum prosapia ortus, statura procerus, vultu
decorus, prudentia consilioque providus, quanquam sæpissime curialibus
negotiis regiisque obsecundationibus irretitus, tamen ad ædificationem
et incrementum ecclesiæ suæ omni nisu et voluntate per noctem erat et
per diem, qui ut eandem ecclesiam celebrem gloriosamque restitueret, in
Apuliam et Calabriam adire Robertum cognomine Guischardum parochianum
suum, aliosque barones consanguineos suos, et alumnos, et notos peregre
profectus, multum in auro, et argento, et gemmis, et palliis variisque
divitiarum donariis acquisivit, tresque asportavit phialas plenas puro
opobalsamo, aliaque pretiosissima quibus postea præfatam ecclesiam intus
et extus locupletavit, majoremque crucifixum largis sumtibus et tempore
longo construxit. Cum autem non haberet in civitate, sive in suburbio
tantum possessionis ecclesia, ubi maneret episcopus, vel proprius equus
ejus posset stabulari, sed neque propriam domum, nisi quoddam
appendicium humile, quod pendebat de parietibus ecclesiæ, ipse prudentia
sua et probitate valentiorem medietatem civitatis, suburbii, et telonei,
et vectigalis, cum molendinis et multa Grimoldi viaca a Guillelmo
invictissimo duce Normannorum, postea quoque glorioso rege Anglorum
trecentis libris comparavit et acquietavit. Postea vero episcopalem
aulam et reliquas officinas construxit, virgultum et vineam non modicam
plantavit, capitium navis ecclesiæ cum area, et hinc inde duo majora
capitia nobiliora et ampliora construxit. Duas turres posteriores a
fundamentis, tertiamque supra chorum opere spectabili sublimavit, in
quibus classicum consonans et pretiosum imposuit, et hæc omnia plumbo
cooperuit."--_Gallia Christiana, Inst._ p. 218.
[211] The instrument, above quoted, abounds in examples of this spirit.
Among the rest, after detailing at length various estates which he had
purchased or obtained as presents for the enriching of his church, it
proceeds to say,--"Cæterum ornamenta ecclesiastica et ustencilia,
calices, cruces, capsas, phylacteria, candelabra, thuribula, bacinos,
siculam et ampullas aurea contulit et argentea, casulas quoque,
dalmaticas, tunicas, planetas, albas, cappas mirifici operis, necnon
dorsalia serica et lanea, cortinas et tapeta, sed et bibliothecas,
passionales, omeliares, missales aureis litteris duos sufficientesque et
competentes libros subrogavit: super hæc omnia pretiosum famosumque
clerum, quo nihil pretiosius in ecclesia et utilius in officium et
servitium divini cultus delegavit, septemque canonicos quos episcopus
Hugo Rotomagi in ecclesia S. Laudi irregulariter constituerat,
apostolica auctoritate ecclesiæ matri revocavit, itemque duos alios
adjecit. Cantorem quoque, et succentorem, et rectorem scholarum, et
custodes ecclesiæ, clericos quoque præbendarios, aurifabros, fabrumque
ferrarium, carpentarios et magistrum coementarium in opus ecclesiæ
constituit. O virum prudentem et domui suæ bene præsidentem, qui de
vivis et electis lapidibus domum suam composuit, et mirabilibus columnis
eam sustentavit!"--_Gallia Christiana, Inst._ p. 219.
[212] The following remarks upon the architecture of the cathedral of
Coutances, transcribed from the journal of a most able friend of the
author's, cannot fail to be acceptable to the reader:--"The cathedral is
most singular in its aspect. It is pointed throughout, except the
circular arches in the vaulting over the side-chapels, and one or two
segments of circles which form the door-ways, within the porches on the
north and south sides. It is really a difficult task to come at any
conclusion respecting the æra of the building, from an inspection of it.
If it is of the Norman age, then the pointed style arose at once from a
transfusion of Arabian or Tartarian architecture. The whole is of a
piece, complete in conception and execution; and there are no
intersecting arches from which a pointed arch may have arisen. The
circles in the spandrils are in the same oriental style as at Bayeux.
The peculiarities of the cathedral are--the side-porches close behind
the towers; the screens of mullioned tracery, which divide the
side-chapels; and the excessive height of the choir, which, having no
triforium, has only a balustrade just before the clerestory windows. The
centre tower is wonderfully fine in the exterior: it is apparently an
expansion of the plain Norman lantern, as at Caen; but most airy and
graceful. There is a double aisle round the ambit and altars are placed
in the bays, as if they were distinct chapels, for which purpose they
were originally intended; but the line continues unbroken. The
perspective of these aisles, and also of the choir, seen from the
Lady-Chapel, is very fine. The round pillars of the choir are double, as
at Canterbury and Senlis. The apsis is half a duodecagon. The pointed
windows above are in two lancet divisions, surmounted by a trefoil; but
the dividing masonry is not a mullion: it is the unperforated part of
the wall. This perhaps is arabesque. There is a second arch within,
which is really divided by a mullion or small pillar. A curious leaf
projects above. Some of the painted glass is in the oldest style:
dispersed patterns in a black outline, on a grey ground. In a
side-chapel are painted tiles, brown and yellow as usual, displaying
knots and armorial bearings. In the same chapel are fresco paintings:
many more are on the east side of the wall that divides the last
choir-aisle from the south transept. They represent St. Michael and the
Devil, the Deity between angels, &c. In all of them, the outline is
formed by a thick black line."
PLATE XCV. AND XCVI.
MOUNT ST. MICHAEL.
[Illustration: Plate 95. MOUNT ST. MICHAEL.
_On the approach from Pontorson._]
Religion, history, poetry, and painting, have all united in giving
celebrity to St. Michael's Mount. The extraordinary sanctity of its
monastery, the striking peculiarities of its form and situation, and the
importance acquired by the many sieges it supported, or the almost
endless pilgrimages it received, have so endeared it to the man of taste
and the philosopher, that scarcely a spot is to be found in Europe, more
generally known, or more universally interesting.
The legendary mist with which St. Michael's Mount is now densely
involved, has continued, from a period of remote antiquity, to float
around its summit. Tradition delights in relating how, in times prior to
the Christian æra, it was devoted to the worship of the great luminary
of heaven, under his Gallic name of Belenus,[213] a title probably
derived from the Hebrew Baal, and the Assyrian Belus. The same tradition
recounts how, at a more recent epoch, it reared its majestic head,
embosomed in a spacious tract of woods and thickets, while the hermits
who had fixed themselves upon its summits, received their daily bread
from the charity of the priest of the neighboring parish of Beauvoir; an
ass spontaneously undertaking the office of conveying it to them, till
on the road he fell a prey to a wolf, who was then constrained by
Providence to devote himself to the same pious labor.
At length, about the year 709, it was decreed that the rock should at
once change its designation and its patron. To the clouds of Paganism,
succeeded the sun of Christianity; and the original heathen appellation,
_Tumba_, was replaced by one of the most elevated names of holy writ.
St. Michael, "the chief of the angels and of the host of heaven, the
protector of the Hebrew synagogue of yore, as now of the Catholic
church, the conqueror of the old serpent, and the leader of souls to
heaven," condescended to be worshipped here upon the western coast, as
on Mount Garganus in the east, and with this view appeared to St.
Aubert, then bishop of Avranches, commanding him to erect a church to
his honor upon the mount. Another legend relates, how there had
previously existed upon the same spot, a religious edifice, which had
passed under the name of the _Monasterium ad duas Tumbas_, being equally
appropriated to the adjoining rock of Tombeleine. However this may have
been, it is admitted on all sides that a church was built, and that the
hill knew thenceforth no other name than that of St. Michael's Mount;
though Aubert, tardy in his belief, had refused to obey the injunction,
till it had been repeated three several times, upon the last of which,
the archangel touched the head of the saint, and left imprinted in his
skull the marks of his fingers, which the author, here quoted, relates
that he himself saw, to his great delight, in the years 1612 and 1641.
To the miraculous vision, succeeded other occurrences of similar import.
A tethered bull pointed out the spot where the holy edifice should be
erected, and at the same time circumscribed its limits; a rock, that
opposed the progress of the workmen, and was immoveable by human art,
spontaneously withdrew at the touch of an infant's foot; and the earth
opening, on being struck with St. Aubert's staff, gave birth to a spring
of water, at once of the utmost use to the inhabitants, and gifted with
the most sanative powers. At about the same period also, the sea
ingulphed the neighboring forests,[214] insulating the rock; so that
three messengers, who had been dispatched to Mount Garganus, thence to
bring a portion of red cloth, the gift of St. Michael, together with a
fragment of the stone on which he himself had sate, found on their
return the aspect of things so changed, that "they thought they must
have entered into a new world."
History, from this period, assumes a character of comparative
authenticity. The Norman conquest threatened for awhile the extinction
of Christianity: the baptism of Rollo, rekindling its dying embers, made
them blaze forth with a light and warmth unknown before. The duke
himself, on the fourth day after he had presented himself at the holy
font, endowed the monastery of St. Michael, then styled "_ecclesiam in
periculo maris supra montem positam_."--No further mention occurs of the
convent, during the reign of this monarch, or of his son, William
Longue-Epée; but their immediate successor, Richard I. amply atoned for
any neglect on their part. He built, according to Dudo of St. Quentin, a
church of wondrous size, together with spacious buildings, for a body of
monks of the Benedictine order, whom he established there in 988,
displacing the regular canons, whose irregular lives had been the
subject of much scandal. This munificence on the part of Richard, has
even caused him to be regarded by some writers as the founder of the
convent.--His son and successor, of the same name, selected St.
Michael's Mount, as the favored spot, where, in the beginning of his
reign, he received the hand of the fair Judith, sister to Geoffrey, one
of the principal counts of Brittany. An opportunity was almost
immediately afterwards afforded him of testifying at once his liberality
and his devotion, as well as his love; for, on the first year of the
eleventh century, the church, which had then been completed only five
years, was burned to the ground. The prince, however, appears to have
been somewhat tardy on the occasion; no attempt was made towards
replacing the loss, till Hildebert II. succeeded as abbot. During his
prelacy, in 1022, the foundations of a new church were laid, upon a
still more extensive scale.--Twenty-six years more were suffered to
elapse, and the abbatial mitre had adorned the brows of four successive
abbots, when Ralph de Beaumont witnessed the completion of the work.
The church then built is expressly stated by the authors of the _Gallia
Christiana_, to be the same as was in existence at the time of the
publication of that work;[215] and M. de Gerville confirms their remark
by his own personal observation, at least as far as relates to the nave.
This indeed has been shortened of late; but he is persuaded, that
whatever still remains is really of the architecture of the days of Duke
Richard.--Robert, the following duke, repaired to St. Michael's Mount,
to superintend his forces, upon the occasion of the revolt of Alain,
Count of Dol; and it was hither, also, that the archbishop of Rouen
brought the humbled count, to make his peace with his offended
sovereign.--At the period of the conquest, the monks of St. Michael
furnished six transports towards that eventful expedition; and when,
after the death of William, the dominion over the mount passed by
purchase from Robert to Henry, they distinguished themselves by their
attachment to their new sovereign, who here supported a siege on the
part of his two elder brothers, and was finally driven to surrender only
by famine. The elder of these brothers, at an advanced period of his
life, re-visited the church in a far different guise; and, to discharge
his vows to the archangel for his safe return from the crusade,
prostrated himself before the shrine which he had erst assaulted with
the fury of his arms.--The year 1158 was, almost above every other,
memorable in the history of St. Michael's Mount. Henry Plantagenet, who,
two years before, had there received the homage of his subjects of
Brittany, then returned in pilgrim weeds, accompanied by Louis VII.
whose repudiated wife, Eleanor of Aquitaine, he had married; and the
two monarchs, attended by a numerous throng of secular nobility, as well
as by several cardinals, archbishops, and bishops, kneeled in amity at
the holy altar.
During the reign of the ill-starred John, St. Michael's Mount passed, in
common with the rest of Normandy, under the sceptre of France, and
suffered severely upon the occasion. Guy of Thouars, then in alliance
with Philip-Augustus, advanced against it at the head of an army of
Britons; and, experiencing on the part of the inhabitants but a feeble
resistance, set fire to the palisades, the principal defence of the
place. The flames communicated to the houses; and the church also fell a
prey to them. To use the words of Brito,
"vis ignea sursùm
Scandit, et ecclesiæ decus omne, locumque sacratum,
Resque monasterii cremat insatiabilis omnes."
Philip lamented the injury, and did all in his power to repair it; but,
considering that one great source of the misfortunes of the holy place
had sprung from the impiety of the Anglo-Norman monarchs, in placing
their trust in ramparts made by human hands, rather than in the
protection of the archangel, he levelled with the ground the few works
of defence that remained.[216] His pious successor, the sainted Louis,
was far from entertaining a similar feeling. On the other hand, when his
devotion led him to the shrine of St. Michael, after returning from his
unfortunate expedition to Damietta, the chronicles expressly state, that
he placed, with his own hand, a considerable sum of money upon the
altar, for the purpose of repairing the fortifications. And it appears
probable that, at a period not very distant, the money thus expended
stood the crown of France in good stead; for, during the war at the
beginning of the fifteenth century, St. Michael's Mount was the only
place that successfully resisted the English arms. The siege it
supported upon that occasion, is one of the few brilliant events that
give lustre to a period of French history, generally dark and gloomy.
Two cannon, of prodigious size, constructed for the discharge of stone
balls, above a foot in diameter, testify to the present moment the
heroic defence of the garrison, and the defeat of the assailants.
At a subsequent period of French history, during the times when party,
under the mask of pious zeal, deluged the kingdom with blood, and
virtuous men of every creed joined in the lamentation, that "tantum
Religio potuit suadere malorum," the Huguenots made many and most brave
and memorable, though vain, attempts to render themselves masters of St.
Michael's Mount. From that time forward, the rock has been suffered to
continue in tranquillity, though still retaining its character as a
fortification. Its designation of late has been a departmental prison:
during the reign of terror, it was applied to the disgraceful purpose of
serving as a receptacle for three hundred ecclesiastics, whose age or
infirmities would not allow of their being transported; and who, with
cruel mockery, were incarcerated within the walls, long gladdened with
the comforts, dignified with the pomp, and sanctified with the holiness
of religion. Prisoners of importance, especially those charged with
crimes against the state, were chiefly confined here before the
revolution, when the iron cage, and the vaults, known by the ominous
names of the _Oubliettes_, or the _In Pace_, gave the mount a melancholy
notoriety.
In this short outline of the history of St. Michael's Mount, mention has
been repeatedly made of French sovereigns who have proceeded thither in
pilgrimage. The task were long to enumerate all those princes and
monarchs who distinguished it with this mark of their veneration. But
there is one other instance too important in its consequences to be
passed over in silence. Louis XI. after having expelled the rebellious
Britons from Normandy in 1463, not content with paying his devotions to
the archangel at his shrine, and bestowing upon the monks a donation of
six hundred crowns of gold, sent them the image of St. Michael, together
with the golden chain that he had himself worn upon his neck; and
directed that the three escalop shells, formerly borne upon the abbatial
shield, should be enriched by the addition of four others, and three
lilies. Nor satisfied with this, he, six years afterwards, still further
testified his devotion, by various privileges granted to the community,
and by the institution of the noble military order of St. Michael,[217]
whose collar was composed of silver escalop shells, while the medal bore
a representation of the archangel trampling upon the dragon, with the
legend, "Immensi tremor oceani."--Even in this enlightened age, the
concourse of pilgrims to the mount is by no means at an end: they are
still to be seen repairing to the church; and, if the female Druids have
ceased for many a century to sell to the sailors their enchanted arrows,
of power to still the angry ocean, when hurled into its waves by a
maiden hand, the Pythonesses of the present day find a no less plentiful
source of emolument in their chaplets, and rosaries, and crosses, and
medals, of St. Michael. The annals of the world abound in details of the
changes of form and feature which superstition has assumed in different
ages; but it is humiliating to human nature to reflect, that the
conquests obtained by philosophy over her great adversary, are in
reality very small. Superstition, like the fabled Proteus, appears under
an endless variety of forms; but she is also, like the god, still one
and the same.
The list of abbots of St. Michael's Mount, contains names of the highest
consequence in France: the Cardinal d'Estouteville, and the still more
illustrious Cardinal de Joyeuse, Henry of Lorraine, son of the Duke de
Guise, and Charles Maurice, of the noble family of Broglio, have, in
times comparatively modern, presided over the community. The privileges
and honorary distinctions attached to the office, were also
considerable. The names of the superiors of the monastery stand recorded
on various occasions, as men selected for important trusts; and they
were formally empowered, by a bull of Pope Clement VII. dated from
Avignon, to bestow the benediction, even in the church of Avranches, and
in the presence of the bishop or the metropolitan himself, and to wear
the mitre, and all other episcopal insignia. The powers and immunities
of the convent were likewise extensive and important. Its annual income
was estimated by the author of the _Alien Priories_, in the middle of
the last century, at forty thousand livres; but it is at the same time
stated in that work, that, at an earlier period, it was far more
considerable. Among the transmarine possessions of the abbey, was its
namesake in Cornwall, which was annexed to it by Robert, Earl of Moreton
and Cornwall, before the year 1085, and was also renowned for its
sanctity at a very remote epoch. The coincidence in form and situation
between the two is most remarkable.