ASIANOVERLAND.NET LONDON TO SYDNEY DAY 254: LONDON, ENGLAND TO MONT-SAINT-MICHEL, FRANCE

Mont-Saint-Michel was used in the sixth and seventh centuries as a stronghold of Gallo-Roman culture and power until it was ransacked by the Franks, ending the trans-channel culture that stood since the departure of the Romans in 460. 

The first monastery was inspired by the archangel Michael, who apparently instructed Aubert of Avranches, the bishop of Avranches, to build a church on the rocky islet in 708.

Unable to defend his kingdom against the assaults of the Vikings, the king of the Franks agreed to grant the Cotentin peninsula and the Avranchin, including Mont-Saint-Michel traditionally linked to the city of Avranches, to the Bretons in the Treaty of Compiègne. In fact, Mont-Saint-Michel was never really included in the duchy of Brittany and remained an independent bishopric from the newly created Breton archbishopric of Dol. When Rollo confirmed Franco as archbishop of Rouen, these traditional dependences of the Rouen archbishopric were retained in it.

The Mont gained strategic significance again in 933 when William I Longsword annexed the Cotentin Peninsula from the weakened Duchy of Brittany. This made the Mont definitively part of Normandy, and is depicted in the Bayeux Tapestry, which commemorates the 1066 Norman conquest of England. Harold Godwinson is pictured on the tapestry rescuing two Norman knights from the quicksand in the tidal flats during the conflict against Conan II, Duke of Brittany.

Norman patronage financed the spectacular Norman architecture of the abbey in the following centuries.

In 1067 the monastery of Mont-Saint-Michel gave its support to William the Conqueror in his claim to the throne of England, in return for properties on the English side of the Channel.

During the Hundred Years' War, the Kingdom of England made numerous assaults on the island but was unable to seize it due to the abbey's fortifications. The English initially besieged the Mont in 1423–24, and again in 1433–34. Two wrought-iron bombards the English abandoned when they gave up their siege are still on site. 

Mont-Saint-Michel's resolute resistance against the English inspired the French, especially Joan of Arc.

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