effort to realize the network training Breton bishoprics, Pierre Le Baud, in the first version of his book, mentions explicitly about Corey, and Tugdual Patern of the famous "Seven Saints of Britain 'which are presented as the founders of Breton bishoprics [1] . This collective worship was apparently witnessed it at the end of XI e century [2] , or more probably in the twelfth century e [3] , probably fairly close relationship with the last fires thrown by the city of Dol and it seems significant in this regard that the geography of successive certifications of this devotion, the XIII and XIV e th centuries, corresponds to zones of influence of the house Avaugour ( Trégor in the East and the Goëllo) and the younger branch of the House of Dinan (in Trégor Western and the Penthievre), that is to say, the diocese of St. Brieuc Tréguier and whose owners were of the Episcopal suffragan of the ultimate Dol, but the list of saints in question, which no doubt the origin of reflected older traditions [4] , long remained very uncertain [5] . As for the "pilgrimage of the Seven Saints of Britain, called in the vernacular Tro Breizh , what is said in Latin circuitus Britanniae ", attested in 1400 [6] , its nature remains problematic [7] even, at times enigmatic, of provided that - in addition to the altars dedicated to them in the cathedrals - the Seven Saints were collectively honored in special sanctuaries [8] , who no doubt were also the subject of pilgrimages . In any event, except a formula very allusive in vita of Patern [9] and interpolation in a manuscript of the island of Malo vita by Bili [ 10] , the corpus of literary texts related to Breton saints is silent on this cult and a fortiori its aspects Farstriders [11] .
This lack of documentary evidence has encouraged the Baud, who has drawn extensively on hagiographic sources, to favor a "healthy neuff istory of the [Britain]" [12] , otherwise unknown, but there is no reason, given the integrity of the historian to suspect the existence and can then observe how, during his description of "the noble church brette" The Baud then slides imperceptibly patrons of dioceses in the territory of the latter:
"This principaulté neuff nascions a particular deed which each singular ung dioceze Beneath church cathedralle and if a glorious boss benoist confessor Jhesu Christ, my ago distincion them wonderful, because troys Devers East proffers are gallicque language, Troy Devers West in all-purpose language parlan brette, and Troy aieans mister average one and langaiges the other, which is distintive extendent a circuit which is called the Tower of Brittany. In which nine churches and Segregated in these troys differences is demonstrated by the noble church disposición brette seeming to have and express carathère heavenly Jerusalem the church triumphant, Having finished hereunto IX orders three Foys ternate by gérarchies, one low and one medium the other a loud, thus differing from s only that her daughter said church brette " [13] .
Now the particular histories of different nations Brittany are combined in the general history of Britain and the nine bishops, nine baronies for institutional set up by the dukes, constitute the real backbone of the duchy, which they distribute space like the clock that divides time:
"And are ordered their credit by way of tents and pavilions, is said in Latin castra, and so located that, Estre to the city and Trinity Chapel, which some say Estre poinct and the center of the circumference and which gives great decorating ours hierarchy The city of Maclovienses, known as S. Maclou, would give the first ray of light in the twilight time of the equinox, the sun lading the Dol, Rennes Joint time premium, the third Nantes, Vennes and the true noon Kempercorentin is Corisopitenses named one of Vespertine, and the other three hid the sun Acquillon Devers. And are again ordered that adjoins Ahaz the clock, the line on the Tegu cherroit Church in Chasteaupaul Leonense, Towards midnight of that office and on Trecorense matutinalle and first song on that of Briocenses Cocq, called Sainct Brieuc Painthièvre " [14] .
So "to the city and Trinity Chapel" it is necessary, according to Le Baud, the omphalos Peninsula, the geographic center of the duchy: the precision is even more interesting because it is probably borrowed to a source more ancient, because the geography of the old historian is essentially the original Breton bookish [15] but it may also echo some contemporary information collected by Le Baud to during his tour of Britain ducal archives [16] . Which place is it? Any means the small town of Trinidad Porhoët, whose priory, dependent on the abbey of Saint-Jacut would have followed up on a residence suspected of King Judith [17] : Located near the ancient road of valves Corseul this village in the heart of the possessions of the Viscounts of Rohan, welcomed the fifteenth century e a large number of pilgrims during the festival, which, as is often seen, was doubled, since the thirteenth century e at least a fair reputation [18] . It is in such a context marked by the ideology of the Rohan family [19] , que cette légende ‘omphalique’ a pu prendre naissance ; mais il n’est pas sans intérêt de rappeler les premières lignes du récit de l’hagiographe à propos du songe de Judaël, père de Judicaël : vidit in sompnis montem excelsissimum esse constitutum in medio sue regionis Britannie, id est in umbilico, per quem ambulandi callis difficilis inveniebatur. Et ibi, in cacumine montis ipsius in cathedram eburneam seipsum consedentem. Et in conspectu ejus erat stans postis mire magnitudinis in modum columpne rotunde , etc (« Il vit en songe une très haute montagne, qui s’élevait au milieu de son royaume de Bretagne, that is to say in his navel, which was a difficult path of access, and there, as he sat in a chair of ivory at the top of the mountain rose before his eyes a pole-shaped round column, to an astonishing height) [20] . If the culmination of Trinidad Porhoët at some 145 m, can be designated as "a very high mountain" so hyperbolic that the plateau is located where the town rises sufficiently steeply above the left bank of Ninian for hagiographer impress. As the pole-shaped round column, to an astonishing height, he was, according to the writer, formed at the base of tin and gold at the top: no archaeological discovery does remind local memory, same distance.
© Yves-André Bourges 2010
[1] P . LE BAUD, Cronicques and ystoires Britons published by C. THE LAND OF Calan, Rennes, t. 2, 1910, p. 17, 135, 16 and 142.
[2] A. OHEIX, "The cult of the Seven Saints of Brittany in the Middle Ages (notes and documents)," Bulletin de la Societe Emulation Cotes-du-Nord , Volume 49 (1911), p. 12-13.
[3] ibid., p. 16.
[4] If should not overlook the contribution of Celtic culture in the formation of this legend, his oldest stratum might be Tours, with the success of the cult of the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus, introduced locally in the sixth century e by Gregory of Tours. Also note the existence, XI-XII e e centuries, a story about the Seven Sleepers of Marmoutier presented as seven brothers, disciples of St. Martin.
[5] A. OHEIX, "The cult of the Seven Saints of Britain ', p. 14-15. - At the beginning of the sixteenth century e memory was lost again: and the rich merchant Nicolas Coëtanlem, parish trégoroise Saint-Melaine de Morlaix, dictating his will in 1518, is wrong there in the list saints concerned: surely he knows Paul Aurelian Tugdual, Brieuc, Malo, Samson, but omitting Corey and Patern, the full list by novus sanctus , St. William [Pinchon], honored in St. Brieuc, and St. Pierre of Nantes, which has nothing specifically Breton.
[6] J. De la Martiniere, "The Tro Breizh in Vannes in the fourteenth century e : conflicts between the chapter and the parishioners of St. Patern, Memoirs of the Society of History and Archaeology of Britain , t. 6 / 2 (1925), p. 159, n. 2: Peregrine Sanctorum Septem ... faciebant peregrinacionem Britanie that vulgaliter vocatur Trobreiz, Latin quod dicitur circuitus Britanie .
[7] CASSARD AD, "The Tro-Breizh medieval historiographical mirage? " Meccas Sacred in Brittany, Brest, 1997 93-119. The existence of a circumambulation around the gigantic of all the west of the Breton peninsula, which would have driven on the road four times a year, tens of thousands of pilgrims, seems quite unlikely: most likely, it was topical pilgrimages, each cathedrals draining its profit Farstriders crowds to the exhibition of relics of its founder.
[8] Without being exhaustive, it is particularly noted in the chapel of Shiner Trégor-Bra in Pédernec, originally under the invocation of the Seven Saints of Britain and Stiffel chapel in Old Market, formerly Plouaret, built only in the early eighteenth century but has succeeded to a very old place of worship. Also recall the memory of the Seven Saints Biconguy in the former diocese of Saint-Malo, the village of Seven Saints Trégornan once Glomel truce in the ancient Diocese of Quimper, and the chapel under their invocation Erdeven in the ancient Diocese of Vannes.
[9] A. La Borderie, St. Patern, Vannes first bishop of Vannes, 1893, p. 8, n. 2. See THOMAS C. and Howlett D. [Ed.] "Vita Sancti Paterni : The Life of Saint Padarn and the Original Miniu » , Trivium , vol. 33 (2003), p. 24-25 : Post haec tanta statuerunt sancti septem episcopatuum totius Letiae ut conuenirent in uno monte et confirmarent suam unitatem in perpetue mansuram. In qua sinodo Paternus multum ab inuidiosis et falsis fratribus fatigatus confirmans unitatem suam cum praecipuis sex sanctis et ille septimum secundum numerum septiformis gratiae extans timensque ne per intolerantiam illorum aliquo uel tenui modo irascetur, Letiam deserens Francos adiuit ibique in Domino obdormiuit decimo septimo Kalendarum Maii mensis . Comme nous l’a fait remarquer B. MERDRIGNAC à qui nous devons cette référence et que nous remercions bien vivement : « On dirait qu’il This is why Vannes is the only foundation Gallo-Roman times to be part of the circuit. "
[10] JC POULIN, The Breton hagiography of the High Middle Ages. Catalog from , Ostfildern, 2009 (Beihefte der Francia, 69), p. 165, reported that unidentified version is known to us with a summary of J. Leland, which, among other unknown episodes also mentions "a tour of the Seven Saints of Brittany (Samson, Machu, Paternus, Courentinus, Paulus Aurelianus, Pabu Tutwallus, Briomalus) at the court of a king Childebert, followed by a donation of land by some Lupercus "even if it is more than probable that this is a" foreign interpolations Bili ", they nevertheless constitute the witnesses fascinating literary traditions.
[11] It does not seem possible to accept the testimony of the Vita II has of St. Lunaire [BHL 4880] , which tells the story of an approach to action, using traditional methods, individual (or family at most), where the patient will ask for his healing in different shrines. The coherence of moving here relates to the attitude of the applicant, who, having forged the leper from Lunar and having attracted him a miracle of punishment, has once again implore the saint after his vain pilgrimage approach: despite the term circuiens , which is reminiscent of the circuitus Britanie (cf. supra n. 6), we can consider a simple return, but with stops in several shrines set up along the route.
[12] P. LE BAUD, Chronicles of the Britons and ystoires , t. 2, p. 6.
[13] ibid., p. 7. The influence of Thomas Aquinas is very noticeable in the second version of the work of P. LE BAUD "Whereby nine churches and divided into three differences, We are available as demonstration by the noble church of Britain and express likeness of Character Hierusalem, the Celestial Church Triumphant, which has nine levels, three times tarnished by hierarchies, one low and one average and one a loud, diversity with illuminations and phrases, and is represented by incest, her daughter, by three-party number novenaire coordinations.
[14] P. LE BAUD, History Brittany ..., p. 5.
[15] CASSARD AD, "" A historian at work: Pierre Le Baud, "in Memoirs of Society for History and Archaeology of Britain , t. 62, (1985), p. 87-88.
[16] This journey is documented in his notebook (ms Rennes, Departmental Archives of Ille-et-Vilaine, 1 F 1003) .
[17] F. THE LAY " A residence Judith, king of Domnonée" Annales de Bretagne , t. 19 (1903), p. 21-28.
[18] IDEM, "The Feast of Trinidad Porhoët the late seventeenth century e "Annales de Bretagne , t. 17 (1901-1902), p. 323-340.
[19] A.-Y. BOURGÈS, "The record of historiographic Hagio-Rohan (1479): Arthur Conan and St. Mériadec to St. Judith" online at http://andreyvesbourges.blogspot.com/2007/11/le Hagio-folder-historiographic-des.html .
[20] Chronicon Briocense § 163 (unpublished transcript sent by the late G. DUKE, translation is ours).
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