502 Mont Saint-Michel
This was due to a TEXTILEindustry, banking, commerce,
and the important presence of Italian, Catalan, and Ger-
man MERCHANTS.
See alsoCATHARS;LANGUEDOC;PROVENCE.
Further reading:Jean-Claude Hélas, “Montpellier,”
EMA2.981–982; Kathryn Reyerson, Business, Banking,
and Finance in Medieval Montpellier(Toronto: Pontifical
Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1985); Kathryn Reyerson,
The Art of the Deal: Intermediaries of Trade in Medieval
Montpellier(Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2002).
Mont Saint-Michel The famous Norman monastery
of Mont Saint-Michel is at the summit of a granite moun-
tainous island cut off from the main land by tides. The
site is 3,000 feet around and 260 feet high. In 708, after a
revelation to him by the archangel Michael, the bishop of
Avranches founded an oratory on it with RELICStaken
from Monte Sant’ Angelo in Italy. In 966 the canons origi-
nally controlling the site were replaced by BENEDICTINE
monks. From this period only a church of Notre Dame-
sous-Terre has survived. It became subterranean when it
was incorporated into the lower infrastructure of the later
ROMANESQUEchurches.
Abbot Hildebert began to build a new abbey church
in 1023. This building required the creation of the upper
platform with chapels on the sides and a CRYPT. On the
north aisle of the church were added an almonry, a
monks’ walk, a refectory, and a kitchen with an infir-
mary, the usual components of a Benedictine monastery.
In 1103 the north side of the nave collapsed. Lightning
caused a new disaster in 1112. All that remained of this
early building campaign were the southern bays of the
nave built between about 1060 and 1080. A miniature
illumination in 15th-century Très riches heures du duc de
Berryshowed a church with a rounded choir surrounded
by an ambulatory with one axial chapel. The central
tower was rebuilt several times; the present spire is from
the modern period. A few monastic buildings from the
Romanesque period have survived.
In 1204 a fire started in the town below by Bretons
reached the abbey and destroyed several structures.
Another rebuilding program in the Gothic style was
begun and was finished by 1228. New walls were added
during the 15th century for protection during the
HUNDREDYEARS’WAR. It was later a prison in the 19th
century and massively restored between 1872 and 1922.
Further reading: Henry Adams, Mont-Saint-Michel
and Chartres(Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1962); J. J. G.
Alexander, Norman Illumination at Mont St. Michel,
966–1100 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1970); Edward
Francis Hunt, The Architecture of Mont-St-Michel
(1203–1228)(Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University
of America Press, 1928); Jacques Thiébaut “Mont Saint
Michel,” EMA,2.982–984.
morality plays Most of the surviving medieval drama
in English and French consists of MYSTERY PLAYS. There is
also a small group of anonymous allegorical dramas, from
the 15th and early 16th centuries, that were known col-
lectively as moralities. Some of these, such as mummings
and the later interludes, were apparently intended for
outdoor performance, in the great hall of a palace,CAS-
TLE, mansion, inn yard, religious house, or institution
such as a college. Among the plays in English were The
King of Life (Pride of Life); The Castle of Perseverance(ca.
1425), for which there survived, uniquely, a 15th-century
staging plan, indicating an outdoor performance;
Mankind; Wisdom; EVERYMAN; Mundus and Infans;
Hickscorner;and Youth.
While mystery plays treated human life in terms of a
Christian scheme of SALVATION, from Creation to the
LAST JUDGMENT, morality plays were single composi-
tions, dramatizing the psychological combat between
good and evil for mastery over a soul. They dealt with
humanity and the passage from innocence through expe-
rience to Redemption by GRACE. Free will and a fallen
appetite led to SIN, from which only repentance could
give relief.
Such plays can be seen as “popular” manifestations
promoting the sacrament of penance. Some were writ-
ten by members of the CLERGYdeploying the theologi-
cal knowledge and confessional experience of their
fellows. These plays had close links with SERMONS.
With their emphasis on the need for confession, they
had strong affinities with the message and activities of
the friars.
Further reading: Peter Happé, ed., Four Morality
Plays (New York: Penguin Books, 1979); Dorothy H.
Brown, Christian Humanism in the Late English Morality
Plays (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1999);
Clifford Davidson, Visualizing the Moral Life: Medieval
Iconography and the Macro Morality Plays (New York:
AMS Press, 1989); Robert A. Potter, The English Morality
Play: Origins, History, and Influence of a Dramatic Tradition
(London: Routledge and K. Paul, 1975).Moravia (Morava) The eastern province of the
present Czech Republic, Moravia was named after the
river Morava, a tributary of the Danube. Often tied
to BOHEMIA, Moravia has its own history. A SLAVpopu-
lation lived on the territory of Moravia from the
mid-sixth century. From the ninth century, Moravian
was linked with BOHEMIA to its west. Among local
princes, Mojmír I (r. 830–846) won control of western
Slovakia, creating a Great Moravia. A successor, Ros-
tislav (r. 846–870), beat back the assaults of the Car-
olingians. Christianity first arrived in Moravia in the
early ninth century through BAVARIA, but, wary of the
FRANKS, Rostislav preferred to ask the BYZANTINESto