Tombelaine-mont-saint-michel-depuis-la-baie

Tombelaine is a small

tidal island A tidal island is a piece of land that is connected to the mainland by a natural or man-made causeway that is exposed at low tide and submerged at high tide. Because of the mystique surrounding tidal islands, many of them have been sites of ...

off the coast of

Normandy Normandy (; french: link=no, Normandie ; nrf, Normaundie, Nouormandie ; from Old French , plural of ''Normant'', originally from the word for "northman" in several Scandinavian languages) is a geographical and cultural region in Northwestern ...

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

. It lies a few kilometres north of

Mont Saint-Michel Mont-Saint-Michel (; Norman: ''Mont Saint Miché''; ) is a tidal island and mainland commune in Normandy, France. The island lies approximately off the country's north-western coast, at the mouth of the Couesnon River near Avranches and is ...

. At low tide the island can be reached on foot (with a guide) from the coast of

Cotentin The Cotentin Peninsula (, ; nrf, Cotentîn ), also known as the Cherbourg Peninsula, is a peninsula in Normandy that forms part of the northwest coast of France. It extends north-westward into the English Channel, towards Great Britain. To its w ...

, to the northeast, and from Mont Saint-Michel. The island lies just to the south of the course of the

Sélune The Sélune is an 85 km long river in the Manche department, Normandy, France, beginning near Saint-Cyr-du-Bailleul. It empties into the bay of Mont Saint-Michel (part of the English Channel) near Avranches, close to the mouth of the Sée ...

river, which has to be forded to access the island from Cotentin. The island is by , and high. It is composed of

granite Granite () is a coarse-grained (phaneritic) intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly cools and solidifies undergro ...

. It is in the commune of

Genêts Genêts () is a commune in the department of Manche, in northwestern France. It was the port of the oppidum Ingena (now Avranches), the main settlement of the Abrincatui. According to

popular etymology A false etymology (fake etymology, popular etymology, etymythology, pseudo-etymology, or par(a)etymology) is a popular but false belief about the origin or derivation of a specific word. It is sometimes called a folk etymology, but this is also a ...

the name means "the tomb of Hélène", from a princess named Hélène, daughter of King Hoël, said to have been buried on the rock. The name could also come from ''tumulus belenis'', the "

tumulus A tumulus (plural tumuli) is a mound of earth and stones raised over a grave or graves. Tumuli are also known as barrows, burial mounds or ''kurgans'', and may be found throughout much of the world. A cairn, which is a mound of stones buil ...

Belenos Belenus (Gaulish: ''Belenos'', ''Belinos'') is an ancient Celtic healing god. The cult of Belenus stretched from the Italian Peninsula to the British Isles, with a main sanctuary located at Aquileia, on the Adriatic coast. Through ''interpretati ...

", a Celtic god, or from

Celtic Celtic, Celtics or Keltic may refer to: Language and ethnicity *pertaining to Celts, a collection of Indo-European peoples in Europe and Anatolia **Celts (modern) *Celtic languages **Proto-Celtic language * Celtic music *Celtic nations Sports Fo ...

words meaning "the little mountain", in contrast with Mont St-Michel.

History

In the 11th century, two monks from Mont Saint-Michel were hermits on Tombelaine. In 1137

Bernard du Bec Bernard du Bec (died May 8, 1149), also known as ''Bernard le Vénérable,'' was a Benedictine monk who served as the thirteenth abbot of Mont Saint-Michel. He belonged to a high-ranking noble family in Normandy Normandy (; french: link=no, ...

founded a

priory A priory is a monastery of men or women under religious vows that is headed by a prior or prioress. Priories may be houses of mendicant friars or nuns (such as the Dominicans, Augustinians, Franciscans, and Carmelites), or monasteries of mon ...

on the island, and it became a place of pilgrimage. On 11 February 1423, in the

Hundred Years War The Hundred Years' War (; 1337–1453) was a series of armed conflicts between the kingdoms of England and France during the Late Middle Ages. It originated from disputed claims to the French throne between the English House of Plantagen ...

, Tombelaine was occupied by the English as a base to attack Mont Saint-Michel. In the 16th-century

French religious wars The French Wars of Religion is the term which is used in reference to a period of civil war between French Catholics and Protestants, commonly called Huguenots, which lasted from 1562 to 1598. According to estimates, between two and four mil ...

Gabriel, comte de Montgomery Gabriel de Lorges, Count of Montgomery, Lord of Lorges and Ducey (5 May 153026 June 1574), was a French nobleman of Scottish extraction and captain of the Scots Guard of King Henry II of France. He is remembered for mortally injuring Henry II i ...

, leader of the

Huguenot The Huguenots ( , also , ) were a religious group of French Protestants who held to the Reformed, or Calvinist, tradition of Protestantism. The term, which may be derived from the name of a Swiss political leader, the Genevan burgomaster Be ...

armies, occupied the island. In 1666 the marquis de la Chastrière ordered the destruction of the island's fortifications, in case they were again used by the English. At the end of the 19th century a legend about the
Marquis de Tombelaine
was created as part of the burgeoning tourist industry around Mont Saint-Michel. The island was purchased by the state in 1933, and was declared a

historic monument A monument is a type of structure that was explicitly created to commemorate a person or event, or which has become relevant to a social group as a part of their remembrance of historic times or cultural heritage, due to its artistic, hist ...

by a decree of 1936. It became a bird reserve in 1985..

References

{{Authority control Islands of Normandy Tidal islands of France Landforms of Manche