Why was St Michaels Mount so special?
While there is no proof that any cult occupied St Michael’s Mount prior to the building of the priory by Bernard du Bec from 1135, most historians seem agreed that it is inconceivable that there were not hermits or monks on this dramatic rocky island by as early as the spread of the cult of St Michael in the C7th or C8th. The island monastery of St Michael on Skellig, 15 kilometres off the Irish coast, was founded circa 588 on an almost inaccessible rock 230 feet high. Its well-preserved monastic buildings consist of stone ‘beehive’ structures. It is hard to imagine that the far more accessible Cornish mount, at almost exactly the same height, was not used in a similar way at about the same time. So, the theory that the Benedictine monks of Mont-Saint-Michel may have produced forged or falsified charters in the C11th and C12th in order to prove genuine ancient rights in Cornwall seems quite credible. Benedictine communities had existed throughout England for several centuries before th
