Tro Breiz – the tour of Brittany – the seven founding fathers
In 313 AD the Roman Emperor Constantine became a Christian, and decreed that everyone in his dominions should follow suit. This couldn’t have happened; there weren’t enough Christians to spread the faith throughout the empire. The Roman pantheon included many gods and over the years had added foreign imports such as Pan, Mithras and the Egyptian trio of Isis, Osiris and Horus, so it is likely that many cities simply added the Christian Trinity to the list. Pre-Roman Bretons had worshipped the great goddess Anna and her assistant Cerne, master of animals and road-builder; they probably continued to do so.
But there were areas strong in their devotion to Christianity, and one of them was South Wales. These Welsh Christians were strongly motivated to convert their neighbours. The Welsh-born Saint Patrick converted the whole of Ireland. Around 520 to 560 AD other Welsh-trained churchmen tackled Brittany, where the local language resembled Welsh. Seven monks did such sterling work in establishing their faith in Brittany that they are remembered to this day:
Saint Samson who founded the bishopric of Dol-de-Bretagne
Saint Malo who founded the city which bears his name
Saint Brieuc who founded a monastery in the town of his name
Saint Tugdual who founded a monastery at Tréguier
Saint Paul Aurélien who converted the people of the Léonaz
Saint Corentin the first bishop of Quimper
Saint Patern the first bishop of Vannes
But apart from their religion, their enormous impact on the population and the sites of their churches, we known strangely little about them. Samson of Dol became involved in dealing with the king of France, and Malo famously moved the city of Alet from to an island fortress surrounded by sea, so they figure in believable records. But for the others the records are sparse and often unbelievable, especially for Corentin, who’s become entwined into the story of the drowned city of Ys (a folk-memory of an event when the sea rose spectacularly at the end of the last ice age, millions of years before Corentin was born).
All seven Welsh clerics built monastic foundations near the coast, where most Bretons lived. Unfortunately from around 900 AD the coast was raided by Danish Vikings. All churches within reach of the coast were looted and destroyed. Nothing remains of them. But when peace finally prevailed, all were rebuilt. The faith and the memory was still there.
In the 13th century, the age of pilgrimages, the custom arose of visiting all seven churches of the founding fathers. This pilgrimage wasn’t officially controlled and organised like the pilgrimage to Compostella. Some pilgrims did the whole trip in one go, but in no particular order, others accomplished parts of it at long intervals. Tro Breiz is the Breton for “tour of Brittany”, and Bretons continue to follow it to this day, in many different ways and for many different reasons, including taking it as a simple celebration of the region’s long history.
Comments