From the foregoing abstracts from the Itinerary two conclusions appear to be inevitable. In the first place, whether of design or by inadvertence, the name Mons Tumba which had been exclusively used of the Norman Mount came to be also applied to the Cornish Mount and, in the second place, the associations of the former came to be adopted by the latter. The postscript to the Count of Mortain’s charter and the newly discovered indulgence mentioned by William, the one an almost verbatim copy of the other, probably bear witness to a fact, namely, that an indulgence was actually granted by Pope Gregory, but that it was granted not to St. Michael’s Mount but to Mont St. Michel. When once the indulgence had been appropriated by the Cornish house it became necessary to account for the allusions contained in it. The ecclesia quae ministerio angelico creditur et comprobatur consecrari et sanctificari demanded some point d’appui, and this could only be obtained by increasing the number of apparitions vouchsafed by St. Michael.
The three apparitions generally accepted by Western Christendom, viz. the appearance in the fifth century to Garganus, that in the sixth century to St. Gregory at Rome, and that in the eighth century (A.D. 706) to St. Aubert, bishop of Avranches (probably identical with the apparicio in ierarchiis nostrorum angelorum), were supplemented by an appearance (A.D. 710) in Tumba in Cornwall. It is impossible to say when this claim was formulated, whether before or after the expulsion of the Benedictines in the fifteenth century. The object was evidently to stimulate pilgrimages, concerning which, however, very little is recorded. Norden, writing in 1584, states that the Mount “hath bene muche resorted unto by Pylgrims in devotion to St. Michaell whose chayre is fabled to be in the Mount, on the south syde, of verie Daungerous access.”
When William of Worcester visited the Mount the priory was in possession of Augustinian nuns known as Bridgettines. Of them William says nothing.
So long as it was Benedictine and under the control of the abbot of Mont St. Michel, successive Kings of England felt constrained, on the declaration of war with France, to take it into their own hands and to administer its preferment. From 1337 onwards the rolls contain numerous entries dealing with the patronage of alien priories. During his war with France Henry IV required the prior of St. Michael’s Mount to hold the priory at farm for a yearly rent of £10. Henry V, having founded the abbey of Syon in Middlesex, transferred the priory to it, the provost and scholars of the college of St. Mary and St. Nicholas at Cambridge, to whom an earlier grant of it seems to have been made, surrendering all their rights in 1462.
Thenceforth until 1536 it remained a Bridgettine nunnery. After the suppression of the monasteries several grants were made of it for terms of years. Eventually Queen Elizabeth sold it to Robert, Earl of Salisbury, by whose son, the second earl, it was conveyed to Sir Francis Basset. By his son, John Basset, it was sold in 1659 to Colonel St. Aubyn. Since that time it has remained in the St. Aubyn family, its present owner and occupier being General John Townshend St. Aubyn, second Lord St. Levan.
With its religious history alone are we here concerned. That the Mount was the home of a Celtic religious community in pre-Norman times hardly admits of doubt. As we have shown, there was some strong bond of attachment between it and the Meneage, a bond which, though weakened and attenuated, was not completely sundered until the dissolution of the monasteries in the sixteenth century. The main proposition here advanced is that the Mount was at a remote period, probably as early as the days of St. Cadoc, the focus of Celtic religious activity for the greater part, if not for the whole, of the Lizard peninsula.
APPENDIX A
Extract from the “Life of St. Samson”
(Ed. by Fawtier, pp. 143-5)
Quadam autem die, cum per quendam pagum quem Tricurium vocant deambularet, audivit, ut verum esset, in sinistra parte de eo, homines baccantum ritu quoddam phanum per imaginariam ludum adorantes; atque ille annuens fratribus ut starent et silerent dumque quiete, et ipse de curru ad terram descendens et ad pedes stans, intendensque in his qui idolum colebant, vidit ante eos in cujusdam vertice montis, simulacrum abominabile adsistere; in quo monte et ego fui, signumque crucis quod sanctus Samson sua manu cum quodam ferro in lapide stante sculpsit adoravi et mea manu palpavi; quod sanctus Samson, ut vidit, festine ad eos, duos apud se tantum fratres eligens, properavit atque ne idolum, unum Deum qui creavit omnia, relinquentes, colere deberent, suaviter commonuit, adstante ante eos eorum comite Guediano; atque excusantibus illis malum non esse mathematicum eorum parentum in ludo servare, aliis furentibus, aliis deridentibus, non nullis autem quibus mens erat sanior ut abiret hortantibus, continuo adest virtus Dei publice ostensa. Nam puer quidam equos in cursu dirigens a quodam veloci equo ad terram cecidit collumque ejus subtus se praecipitem plicans, exanimum paene corpus in jecturam tantum remansit.
Flentibus autem circa illum vicinis suis, sanctus Samson dixit “Videtis quod simulacrum vestrum non potest huic mortuo adjutorium dare? Si autem promittitis vos hoc idolum penitus destruere et non amplius adorare ego illum, Deo in me operante, redivivum resuscitabo.” Adquiescentibus autem illis, jussit eos paulo longius secedere, atque illo orante super exanimem per binas ferme horas, illum qui expiratus fuerat redivivum palam omnibus atque incolumem redidit. Videntibus autem illis, unanimes omnes una cum supradicto comite, procidentes ad sancti Samsonis pedes, idolum penitus destruxerunt.