Rambles in Brittany

by M. F. Mansfield

Above the bishops are the archbishops, who administer to the wants of their diocese in the same way as the bishops, and, in addition, preside at all provincial councils, ordain the bishops, and in general have a certain jurisdiction over the bishoprics of their sees.

The ecclesiastical provinces, as the great administrative districts of the Church are known, correspond to-day, in a great part, to the ancient provinces of the Roman epoch in Gaul, as the bishoprics themselves correspond with the ancient cities and towns.

Higher up even than the archbishops are the cardinals, nominated by the Pope with the concurrence of the head of the French nation. To-day there are five cardinals in France, all being titularies of one of the Roman churches and members of the Sacred College which elects the Pope.

Those who know Brittany will recognize as the foremost trait and characteristic of the people their devotion to religious forms and ceremonies.

It has been said that by nature the Bretons are conservative. This is indeed true enough, but they are something more, they are superstitious, not only with regard to certain phases of their religion, but also with respect to many of their local customs, which have naught to do with religion. It is said that belief in witchcraft still endures, and certain it is that folk-lore and fairy-lore are, in some parts, quite as much of the life of the people as is the case in the bogs of Ireland. The Celtic imagination, which is the same in both instances, doubtless accounts for this. What the Bretons really are, or have been, though they have not often been accused of it, is pagan,—at least some of them are. It was only in the seventeenth century that the pagan cult—as a body of magnitude—was suppressed. This again was a survival, of course, from the barbarous rites and practices of the druids, which indeed were the same elsewhere, so it need not be laid up against the Bretons alone.

Probably those vast colonies of megalithic monuments at Carnac, and their orphaned brothers and sisters scattered elsewhere throughout Brittany, did much to keep the flames aglow on pagan altars, and even to-day it is easy to perceive with what awe and veneration the simple-minded Breton peasant regards these weird survivals of other days. At any rate, Breton religion to-day is a devotion to many forms and ceremonies.

Brittany has been called the land of pardons (pays des pardons). Every one knows of these great Breton festivals and of their significance. If one travel between May and October, scarcely a week will pass without his falling unawares upon one or another of these great sacred fêtes.

All Bretons do not give to these rites the sacred regard with which they were originally intended to be endowed. Decidedly they have been profaned only too often, and at times there is a little too much license. The Breton pardon is by no means to be thought of in the same manner as the kermess of Flanders, which is a merrymaking pure and simple, with not even a side-light of religion thrown upon it.

The five great pardons of Brittany are held each year as follows:

“The Pardon of the Poor,” at St. Yves; “The Pardon of the Singers,” at Rumengol; “The Pardon of the Fire,” at St. Jean du Doigt; “The Pardon of the Mountain,” at Troménie de St. Ronan; “The Pardon of the Sea,” at Ste. Anne de la Palude.