In Brittany down to our own time honor continues to be paid to a great number of saints not known elsewhere, never canonized by the Roman church and probably in their origin having little of Christian character, more than likely Christian representatives of earlier, local, pagan divinities. The functions of these local Breton saints are specialized to an extent hardly found elsewhere at the present time. Ailments are subject to the cure of particular saints. The specialization is hardly equalled even by that in the modern practice of medicine. Saint Mamert is invoked in case of pains of the stomach, Saint Méen for insanity, Saint Hubert for dog bites, Saint Livertin for headache, Saint Houarniaule for fear, Saint Radegonde for toothache.
There is a certain beauty in the intimate relations existing between simple people and their divine representative, but the naïve character of the practice, in a striking manner, brings to one’s realization the superstitious mode of thought prevalent in medieval times. The Reformation, in the sixteenth century, did much to dispel these older, superstitious forms of religious thought. As already remarked, among Protestants the old reverence of the saints is hardly understood. In the modern Catholic church, too, the extravagant features of saintly legend and of saint worship have been largely eliminated, only vestiges surviving in those provinces little affected by modern progress.
Images of Breton Saints, Preserved at Moncontour-de-Bretagne.
Evidence of similar specialization in earlier forms of saint worship, and of Protestant ridicule of it, is to be found in Barnabe Googe’s sixteenth-century translations from Naogeorgus[77]:
To every saint they also doe his office here assine,
And fourtene doe they count of whom thou mayst have ayde divine;
Saint Barbara lookes that none without the body of Christ doe dye,
Saint Cathern favours learned men, and gives them wisdome hye;