Ecclesiastical History.—The Mount appears to have been consecrated by superstition from the earliest period; and, according to monkish legends, from the supposed appearance of the archangel Saint Michael to some hermits, upon one of its craggy points. Tradition has not preserved the place where the vision appeared, but antiquarianism has attempted to supply the deficiency by conjecture; the spot was denominated "Saint Michael's Chair," and is said to be one of the large rocks overhanging the battery, an appellation which has been erroneously transferred to the carcase of a stone lantern, situated, as we have just stated, on the tower of the chapel. Our poet Milton alludes to this vision in the following passage of his Lycidas—
"Or whether thou to our moist views deny'd
"Sleeps't by the fable of Bellerus old
"Where the great vision of the guarded mount
"Looks towards Namancos and Bayonas hold.
"Look homeward Angel now, and melt with ruth,
"And O ye dolphins, waft the hapless youth."
Spencer also makes mention of this spot in a manner which proves that it was universally hallowed by the devout.
"In evil hour thou lenst in hond
"Thus holy hills to blame,
"For sacred unto Saints they stond,
"And of them han their name,
"St. Michael's Mount who does not know
"That wards the western coast."
Very little is known with respect to the ecclesiastical history of the Mount, previous to its endowment by Edward the Confessor. From what may be collected, however, from expiring tradition, it would appear that so early as the end of the fifth century, Saint Keyne, a holy virgin of the blood royal, daughter of Breganus Prince of Brecknockshire, with her cockle hat and staff, performed a pilgrimage to Saint Michael's Mount: now it is fair to conclude that it was before this time a place universally hallowed, or a person of Saint Keyne's rank would not have paid it such a visit; thus then was it renowned for its sanctity for at least five hundred years before the grant and settlement of it by the Confessor; before this period, however, it was probably little more than an hermitage, or oratory, with the necessary reception for pilgrims.
The Confessor found monks here serving God, and gave them by charter the property of the Mount together with "all the land of Vennefire (a district probably in Cornwall), with the towns, houses, fields, meadows, land cultivated, and uncultivated, with their rents; together with a port called Ruminella (Romney in Kent), with all things that appertain, as mills and fisheries," first obliging them to conform the rule of the order of Saint Benedict.
The peculiar respect in which this church was held may be estimated from an instrument recorded by William of Worcester, and asserted to have been found amongst its ancient registers.
"To all members of Holy Mother Church, who shall read or hear these letters, Peace and Salvation. Be it known unto you all, that our Most Holy Lord Pope Gregory, in the year of Christ's Incarnation, 1070, out of his great zeal and devotion to the church of Mount Saint Michal, in Tumba, in the county of Cornwall, hath piously granted to the aforesaid church, which is entrusted to the Angelical Ministry, and with full approbation, consecrated and sanctified, to remit to all the faithful, who shall enrich, endow, or visit the said church, a third part of their Penance, and that this grant may remain for ever unshaken and inviolable, by the authority of God the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, he forbids all his Successors from attempting to make any alteration against this Decree."
We learn from the same author, that in order to encrease, as much as possible, the influx of votaries to the shrine, the above decree was placed publicly on the gates of the church, and enjoined to be read in other churches.
When the Normans came in, Robert Earl of Morton and Cornwall became the patron of this religious house, erected buildings, and gave some lands, but from a superior affection for Normandy, he abridged its liberties, and annexed it to the monastery of Saint Michael de periculo Maris, on the coast of Normandy, to which situation the Mount is said to bear a striking resemblance; from this time, it became only a cell dependant upon, and subordinate to that foreign priory. As these Monks were of the reformed order of Benedictines, and of the Gilbertine kind, a nunnery was allowed in their vicinity; this they would make us believe was done with no other view, than to shew the triumph of faith over the impulse of sense, but it certainly must be confessed, to speak even most charitably of it, that such an union amid the sequestration of solitude, carries a strange appearance with it to our protestant suspiciousness. The remains of this convent, we have already said, were removed by the late proprietor, and the New Buildings, as they are called, erected on their site; from the appearance of the carved fragments of stone, and other marks of architectural distinction, found among the ruins, the Nunnery appears to have been by far the most costly and magnificent part of the edifice, the result we presume of Monkish gallantry. Its establishment appears to have terminated at the time Pomeroy surprised it, (an account of which transaction is recorded under the military history,) but the Priory continued a cell to Saint Michael's in Normandy, until that connection was destroyed, and all the alien priories were seized in the reign of Edward the Third.