People walk under a light projection during the Shanghai International Light Festival at a shopping mall complex in Shanghai on September 22, 2025. (Photo by Jade Gao/AFP Photo)

A schoolgirl reacts as she wades through a flooded street during heavy rain showers in Mumbai on August 18, 2025. (Photo by Punit Paranjpe/AFP Photo)

A mahout splashes water on his elephant in the river Sabarmati on a hot summer day in Ahmedabad, India, May 20, 2015. (Photo by Amit Dave/Reuters)

Participants, one of them loosing balance, jump in a sack race at a shopping center in Paris to win a 500 euros voucher (537 USD), on the first day of the winter sales in Paris, France, Wednesday, January 6 , 2016. The five-week 2016 winter sales start everywhere across France on Wednesday Jan. 6 and end on Feb. 16. (Photo by Francois Mori/AP Photo)

A Minion character dressed in a Christmas theme is pictured in Times Square during unseasonably warm weather on Christmas Eve in the Manhattan borough of New York, December 24, 2015. (Photo by Carlo Allegri/Reuters)

An Indian woman wrapped in a shawl travels with others on a bullock cart on a cold day at Jhansi district, in Bundelkhand, India, Monday, December 29, 2014. Most parts of north India Monday continued to shiver under biting cold with the mercury dipping several notches. (Photo by Rajesh Kumar Singh/AP Photo)

A guard dog in the suburbs of Yakutsk, Russia, considered to be the coldest city in the world, January 2014. (Photo by Amos Chapple/REX Features)

During the feudal times, the society was very structured where everyone knew their place. Fishermen knew that they would always have to bend their knee for highborn ladies and gentlemen, while the latter considered themselves to be far too superior to even look at the common folk. Mont Saint-Michel is a living memorial of those times. Its structural composition clearly reflects the structure of feudal society: The monastery and abbey were built on the highest point; housing and stores were built some distance below; finally, fishermen’s and farmer’s houses were constructed, not even being within the city walls, making them the most vulnerable to the possible attack.