Brittany

by S. Baring-Gould

* VANNES (M.) chl. d'arr. Capital of the Department, and seat of a bishop. The town is not remarkably picturesque. The walls remain in places but built into, and only two gates with flanking towers have been spared. The cathedral is very disappointing, and there are few picturesque old houses. Vannes was the capital of the warlike Veneti, whom Cæsar crushed in B.C. 57, when he butchered all the chiefs and leading nobles, and sold their families into slavery. It became a Roman town, called Duriorigum, and six Roman roads struck over the country from it to Locmariaquer, Hennebont, Corseul, Rennes, Rieux, and Arzal. A Roman necropolis has been found on the site of the artillery barracks. At the beginning of the 5th cent. many towns dropped their particular names and assumed those of the peoples to which they formed centres, and then the place took the name which it has since borne in Breton, Gweneth. Christianity having made some progress among the Veneti, in 465 Perpetuus, metropolitan of Tours, assembled a council at Vannes, and consecrated to it a bishop, Paternus. The city remained Gallo-Roman; but throughout the 5th and 6th cents. British emigrants arrived in such numbers, that in 590, Regalis, the bishop, complained that he was, as it were, imprisoned within the walls of the town by them. These colonists had their own laws, princes, and ecclesiastical system, and would not recognise the bishop. In 496 we hear of an Eusebius, king or governor of the town. An alliance was entered into between the Armoricans and the Franks, and Clovis and his successors were recognised as overlords. Whether the British chieftain Weroch got into the city and established himself there is doubtful, but his son Macliau did so, on his death. Macliau was in orders, and married. On the death of the bishop he induced the clergy and people to elect him as their bishop, and to satisfy their prejudices dismissed his wife. No sooner, however, was he firmly seated on the episcopal throne, than he sent for his wife and children. About eight years later his brother Canao, secular chief of the Bretons, revolted against the Franks, whereupon Macliau proclaimed himself Count as well as Bishop. He was killed along with two of his sons in 577. Pepin occupied the city in 753, and Louis the Pious visited it at the head of an army in 818. In 843 Nominoe, governor of Brittany, shook off the yoke of Frank allegiance. Then came the invasion of the Northmen, and the disappearance of the Counts of Vannes, till 937, when Alan II., Barbetorte, friend of Athelstan, was recognised as Count, and transmitted the title to his descendants. The town walls were rebuilt in 1270. In less than a century the War of Succession broke out and Vannes had to stand four sieges in one year, 1342. John IV., conqueror at Auray in 1364, repaired the walls, and extended them. The cathedral church of S. Peter was burnt by the Northmen in the 10th cent. and was rebuilt in the 11th at the same time as the abbey church of S. Gildas de Rhuys. But the tower was added in the 13th cent. and the whole of the nave and transepts, the former in 1452-76 and the latter in 1504-27, consequently in the flamboyant style. The nave has no side aisles, but chapels between the buttresses. In 1537 Archdeacon Jean Danialo who had been in Rome, returned enthusiastic in favour of pagan architecture, and to show the canons what he admired, constructed the circular Chapel of the B. Sacrament on the north side, a beautiful structure for its style. But at the same time the chapter was building its cloisters, and they are full flamboyant tending to renaissance. The apsidal Chapel of N.D. and S. Vincent was erected at the same time also, and is thoroughly Italian. In the meantime the old Romanesque choir showed signs of falling, and was pulled down in 1770 and the present choir was built and finished in 1776. Then the chapter set to work to transform the nave. All the tracery was hacked out of the windows, and a plain barrel vault was added. The W. tower has had a spire added to it recently, and the W. front was "restored" in feeble style in 1868-73. Then the architect was entrusted with filling the windows with tracery; and he, not comprehending the character of the nave, inserted tracery of a century earlier in style. The N. transept had a fine doorway, but it has been blocked up for a hideous baroque retable and altar to stand against it. Thus the church, never very fine, has lost much of its character and interest. In the N. transept is the tomb of S. Vincent Ferrier, and above it his bust in silver. Vincent was born at Valence in 1357, and in 1374 entered his novitiate among the Dominicans. He was sent to Barcelona and Lerida to give lessons in philosophy, but threw up the study and devoted himself to preaching, and rambled through France, Spain, Italy, England, Scotland and Ireland, as a revivalist preacher, but, of course, in such countries as did not understand his tongue, the effect of his sermons was lost. He spent two years in Brittany, where he cannot have been of any use, as the peasants could not comprehend French. He died at Vannes on the 5th April 1419, but the Pardon is on the 1st Sunday in September. The other churches of Vannes are not worth looking at. That of S. Paternus was built in 1727. The Museum of Archæology of the Societé Polymathique du Morbihan contains many interesting objects from the dolmens and tumuli of the Morbihan.

Vannes is situated at the distance of 5 kilometres from the Morbihan, the inland sea that gives its name to the Department. Almost every day two little steamers leave the port for the islets, but the time of starting depends on the tide. The Gulf of the Morbihan is some 8 miles long and about 15 miles wide. It communicates with the sea by a narrow mouth only three-quarters of a mile across. It is nowhere deep; from 45 to 60 ft. is its depth. It is studded with low islands, of which at the outside forty are inhabited and some fifty are cultivated. The inhabitants live by fishing, and all the men are sailors.

This inland sheet of water is cut off from the ocean by two great crab's claws, the peninsula of Sarzeau and that of Locmariaquer. The scenery is by no means bold; sandy shores and low islets, and mud banks at the fall of the tide. The archipelago is, however, very interesting because of the numerous prehistoric remains on the islands.

The Isle of Arz is about two miles long. Here was formerly a priory dependent on S. Gildas, and it possesses a Romanesque church, unhappily repaired and remodelled at various epochs. Near the little Cap de Brohel and in the islet of Boëdic are megalithic monuments. At Penraz, south-east of the village, is half of a cromlech or circle of stones 60 ft. in diameter. At Cap Brohel, ruined dolmens and fallen menhirs; at Pen-lious three fallen dolmens and some menhirs. P. 8th September.

Ile aux Moines is separated from the Ile d'Arz by a channel 60 ft. deep at low tide. The ancient name of the island was Crialeis, in Breton it is Ines Menah or Izenah. The prehistoric monuments in it are: the great circle of stones at Kergonan, of which only half remains; the fine dolmen of Penhap, some menhirs, and the ruined dolmens of Broel, Vigie, Kerno, Roh-vras, Roh-vihan, Niol and Pon-niol. The island was granted by Erespoe to the monks of Redon, but after the devastation by the Northmen it was lost to the monks of Redon. The church is modern and is dedicated to S. Michael. P. 29th September. The island was colonised after the Northmen had swept it of its inhabitants, by settlers from Rhuys. The costume of the women is almost the same, but of a more antique cut and character. All the islands in this inland sea, like the mainland have sunk at least 16 ft. since prehistoric times. In the little islet of Er Lannig are two cromlechs, or circles of standing stones; one is half submerged, and the other completely under water, even at low tides.

Gavrinis lies to the east of the Ile aux Moines. Although less important than those already described, it is the most interesting of all in the Morbihan, on account of its tumulus, 25 ft. high, that covers a fine covered gallery, the stones of which are elaborately carved with mysterious signs like the tattoo-marks of New Zealanders. A gallery 40 ft. long leads to the central chamber, which is 5 ft. high and 6 ft. 6 in. wide. The blocks are of a fine grained granite, not of the island, but brought from a distance, with the exception of two, that are of quartz, and these are unsculptured. Such as are carved, were clearly so dealt with before they were erected in place, as the working passes round the edges.

Er-lanic is situated half a kilometre to the south-east of Gavrinis, and here are the two cromlechs already mentioned, one dipping into the sea, the other already in deep water. They are juxtaposed, forming an 8, and lie on the S. E. of the island. The first circle consists of 180 stones, but several are fallen, and it can only be seen complete when the tide is out. One stone is 16 ft. high. The second circle can only be seen at low tides.

Ile longue contains a cairn that also covers a gallery. It has not been fully examined.

Saint Avée. The church is poor and uninteresting, but in the churchyard is a curious cross, with platform from which, according to local tradition, capital sentences were pronounced. On one side is the crucifix, on the other the B.V.M. On the sides S. John the Baptist and S. Peter. In the church are two windows middle pointed. There is a lech in the churchyard at the east end of the church. But what is of far higher value than the parish church is the remarkable chapel in the Bourg-bas, which is flamboyant (1475-94), except the N. transept that is 2nd pointed. Between the nave and the choir and transepts is a tall crucifix enriched with niches, with railing and gates at the side, a totally unusual description of roodscreen. The crucifix is certainly of 1500. The transepts contain four altars with their original retables. The first on the N. side has very rude carving representing the Crucifixion, Christ in Glory, and the B. Virgin crowned (?) with a dove by her. The second and third are plain with graceful border of foliage. The fourth is a splendid bit of alabaster work, probably Flemish, and represents a virgin saint, the Crucifixion, a saint, Christ giving benediction, S. Avée (?), a Queen-saint, S. Mary Magdalen and a Mermaid. There are some early statues in the chapel, an admirable S. Lucy of the 15th cent., the drapery splendidly executed. Such early statues are very rare. Another is of S. Columbanus. Some fragments of old glass are in the windows. In the churchyard is a very curious carved Calvary of unique character, also a Holy Well. The E. window of the chancel is flamboyant of a later character than the rest. In the N. transept is one flamboyant, the tracery forming a fleur-de-lys. The others are middle pointed. The chapel has a slate spirelet. S. of the chapel by the roadside is a lech with a crucifix planted on top of it. The camp of La Villeneuve is of undetermined date. To reach it the road to Josselin must be taken and diverged from to the left to Mangolorian. Near this hamlet is the camp on a steep hill, almost impracticable on all sides but the west, where it is defended by two ranges of ditches and by two walls. The camp is called either Villeneuve or Kastel-Kerneué.

The Vallon de Poignan is within an easy stroll from Vannes. The road to Pontivy is followed as far as the Chapel of S. Guen, and then a lane to the right leads to some curious rocks, one of which is fancifully called a Druid altar. The road to Josselin is then entered, and a lane to the right conducts to the picturesque, rocky valley of Poignan, at the end of an avenue of oaks.