Last modified: 2024-11-16 by olivier touzeau
Keywords: manche | mont-saint-michel (le) | fleurs-de-lys: 3 (yellow) | scallops: 10 (white) |
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Mont-Saint-Michel is the most visited place in France, and
deserves its reputation because of its unique site and architecture.
Administratively, Mont-Saint-Michel is a municipality of 72
inhabitants (Montois).
Mont-Saint-Michel is a small granitic island of ca. 900 m of
circumference and 80 m of elevation, linked to the mainland by a dike
built in 1877. The Bay of Mont-Saint-Michel, including the island and
the companion uninhabited islet of Tomblaine, is listed as World
Heritage by UNESCO (1979). The Bay has the shore with the highest
tides (maximum foreshore 15 m) in France.
Polders protected by dikes have been established there since (at
least) the XIth century, and the area is famous for its moutons de
prés-salés ('salted-pasture sheep'), which graze on
the herbus a grass very rich in salt and have a very specific
taste.
Unfortunately, the Bay is subjected to constant silting up, and Mont-Saint-Michel is really an island only a few days per year. A huge project of restoration of the Bay shall involve the replacement of the dike by a bridge and the suppression of some of the dams that limit fresh water flow into the Bay.
Ivan Sache, 25 June 2001
The arms of the commune of Mont Saint-Michel are blazoned:
Azure two bars wavy vert, overall two salmons argent in bend sinister
placed palewise, the upper one facing sinister.
They are different from the arms of the abbey.
Olivier Touzeau, 5 November 2024
In the beginning of the VIIIth century, Saint Aubert, bishop of Avranches, was ordered by Saint Michael to build a sanctuary on the Mont-Tombe. Aubert was a bit reluctant until the Archangel sticked his finger into Aubert's head. In the past, Aubert's putative skull with the mark of the Archangel's finger was exhibited in the cathedral of Avranches. In the meantime, a geological disaster engulfed the woody area around the Mount, which became an island on which Aubert built the required sanctuary.
The building of the Merveille ('The Wonder'), the Gothic
fortified abbey, lasted from XIIIth to XVIth century, and the
sanctuary rapidly became a popular pilgrimage place. The single
steep, narrow street which leads from the fortified entrance gate of
the island to the fortified entrance gate of the abbey was already
crowded with shops offering souvenirs and pseudo-relics to the
pilgrims. During the Hundred Years' War, the English, who ruled over
the area, granted access to the sanctuary. The fortified abbey was
the only place in the north-west of France which was never
seized.
In 1969, a small group of Benedictine monks came back to the abbey
and they are still trying to maintain a monastic life in spite of the
touristic turmoil.
The location of Mont-Saint-Michel is a traditional matter of controversy between Bretons and Normands. In the IXth century, the border between the two feudal states was fixed as the Couesnon river, which flows into the Bay, and leaves the Mont to its right. Therefore, Mont-Saint-Michel is in Normandy, and a famous Breton dictum (with several variants) says:
'Et le Couesnon en sa folie, / And Couesnon, in its
madness,
A mis le Mont en Normandie. / Placed the Mount in Normandy.'
Ivan Sache, 25 June 2001
![[Flag of Mont-Saint-Michel]](../images/f/fr-50_ms.gif)
![[Flag of Mont-Saint-Michel]](../images/f/fr-50_ms.jpg)
Flag of the EPIC of Mont Saint-Michel - Image by Olivier Touzeau, 5 November 2024
Photograph by Alexy Duquesne, 5 November 2024
A
white flag with logo is currently flown on Mont Saint-Michel, together
with the flag of Normandy and the French flag.
The logo was adopted in may 2022 [source - Ouest France] by the EPIC (public institution of an
industrial and commercial nature) of Mont Saint-Michel. This
institution was created by a decree of December 11, 2019 and it is
responsible for ensuring unified management of the site as well as the
development of Mont Saint-Michel and its bay, in conjunction with
local authorities and economic bodies.
"The new logo of the Mont Saint-Michel Public Establishment aims to
unify the words of the various stakeholders responsible for
safeguarding and attracting the site: local authorities, local and
economic partners, and the Ministries of Ecological Transition and
Culture. The Graphéine communications agency has designed this first
visual identity for the EPIC with a deliberately less traditional and
figurative design. The font, created especially for the occasion,
comes from the Blaze Type foundry, which specializes in variable
typography. A play on superposition in the lettering and differences
in height symbolize the architectural characteristics of Mont
Saint-Michel in a simple and effective way: - the interpretation of
the footbridge by the word "mont"; - the village and the abbey
materialized by a double level of writing between "saint" and the
beginning of "michel"; - the stretched "h" recalls the spire of the
abbey; - the "e" balances the composition and stylizes the arches of
the building; - the "L", the only capital letter, underlines the
ramparts and the horizon line. The blue of the calligram was chosen to
represent the maritime environment and the institutional framework of
the establishment." [source: agency Graphéine].
Olivier Touzeau, 5 November 2024
Flags of Normandy
The flag of Normandy can usually be seen on the Mont Saint-Michel together with the flags of France and European Union.
The variant flag of Normandy with a cross has been spotted
in 2015/2017: photo (2015), photo (2017).
Olivier Touzeau, 5 November 2024
Flags of Brittany
The flag of Brittany was hoisted together with the flag of Normandy, at the
initiative of the Mont Saint-Michel municipality in March 2018 [source : France 3]. The location of Mont-Saint-Michel being a traditional matter of
controversy between Bretons and Normands, this initiative has generated controversy.
"For two weeks, the Breton flag had been flying at the entrance to
Mont-Saint-Michel. No reason to be offended according to the Mayor,
especially since he himself was the originator of this idea: "what we
call the Emerald Coast starts from Saint-Malo and goes all the way to
Granville, so Norman, Breton, it's the same" says Yann Galton. Why did
you choose to put the Breton flag at the entrance to the Mont?
Provocation? Malice? Desire to share? The mayor simply explains that"the wind had torn the old flag. The only flag available in the
reserve was the Breton flag"... Very quickly, the municipality
received protest emails and phone calls from people outraged to see
the Breton flag on the Normandy Mont. The Mayor of Mont-Saint-Michel
admits to being disconcerted. In the alleys, the eternal quarrel over
the Mont's ownership is rekindled: "all this is starting to tire me
out, all in all, let's bring back the European" announces Yann Galton.
No sooner said than done: the stars of the European Union are hoisted
in the sky of Mont-Saint-Michel to replace the flag of discord. End of
the controversy."
Olivier Touzeau, 5 November 2024
The flag of the Kingdom of France and the flag of the kingdom of Araucania-Patagonia were hoisted in 2020 [source: La Manche Libre]Flags hoisted irregularly
Olivier Touzeau, 5 November 2024
![[Flag of Mont-Saint-Michel]](../images/f/fr-50-ms.gif)
The flag of [the abbey of] Mont-Saint-Michel, as photographed by Hervé Prat (source), is a banner of the municipal arms. These arms are:
De sable à six coquilles d'argent 3, 2 et 1 ; au chef d'azur, à trois
fleurs de lys d'or.
In English: Sable six escallops argent a chief azure three fleur-de-lys or.
Brian Timms, who gives the blazons, states that a variant of the arms with ten scallops has been reported. It seems that the designer of the flag followed the variant, ten scallops being maybe a better geometrical way to fill a rectangular space than only six of them.
The scallop is called in French coquille Saint-Jacques (St. James'
shell). According to the Grand Robert de la Langue Française, pilgrims
going to Santiago attached a scallop to their coat and hat. The pilgrims
going to Mont-Saint-Michel did the same.
There was also a group of nasty rascals who attached a scallop to their
cape in order to look like honorable pilgrims. They were called Coquillards.
Ivan Sache, 16 April 2004
![[Flag of the Logis Tiphaine]](../images/f/fr-50!ms.gif)
by Ivan Sache
There is a vertical, forked banner divided red-yellow, hoisted on the windows and balcony of the Logis de Tiphaine ('Tiphaine's Abode').
Famous constable Bertrand Du Guesclin is said to have purchased
this house in 1365 to establish his wife Tiphaine Raguenel in a safe
place when he was captain of the neighbouring garrison of Pontorson,
on the border between Normandy and Brittany.
Du Guesclin met Tiphaine Raguenel in
Dinan in 1357 during a tournament that
opposed him to the infamous knight Cantorbery, who had broken a truce
and captured Bertrand's brother by felony. Tiphaine was said to be
clever and refined, but was immediatly charmed by Du Guesclin, known
as very coarse. Anyway, their union was very happy, they married and
got a lot of children
Ivan Sache, 25 June 2001