Monster Relics: The Giant, the Archangel, and Mont-Saint-Michel in the Alliterative Morte Arthure

The history of Mont-St-Michel provides context for the witty comparisons made between the Giant of Mont-St-Michel and Saint Michael himself in lines 841–1230 of the Alliterative Morte Arthure. Stories of anxiety over the absence of Saint Michael’s bodily relics inform the episode’s humor and suggest a way in which a monster’s corpse might also be a relic.