I often go to France in the summer,but in 2011 I decided to revisit Brittanywhere I had not been for many years.Brittany is often said to be likeCornwall. But I don't think it is, really:the interior is more lush with extensivefarmland areas, unlike the Cornishmoorlands and granite, and much ofthe coast does not have northCornwall’s tall cliffs. Some parts of thecoast are low-lying with low cliffs, sanddunes and lots of inlets and headlands.Brittany is justly famous for its

prehistoric megalithic monuments(see feature Nov/Dec 20011/121), and Idid revisit the Carnac alignments andthe sites around Locmariaquer, laTable des Marchand, the GrandMenhir and so on. These are nowmuch better displayed than they were40 years ago, and though in some waysthey are rather less accessible, thisdoes not seem to detract from a visit tothem.With my particular interests in early

medieval monuments, however, I was

keen to look at such evidence inBrittany. The region's name is usuallysaid to derive from “Britain”, and bethe result of British immigrantscrossing the channel in the late andpost-Roman period. There seems tome to be a developing thesis that therewere in fact two influxes of Britishpeople to Brittany. One in the fourthcentury (and possibly the late third),and another a little later in the fifthand sixth centuries. The first may havebeen of people from eastern England(Kent, Essex, Suffolk etc), perhapsdisplaced by incoming Anglo-Saxonsand relocated by the Romanauthorities to a “safer” area, the well-developed Roman province ofLugdunensis Tertia, in Brittany. Thisis an idea I first heard at a conference

some years ago from David Dumville(currently professor of history andpalaeography at the University ofAberdeen), the argument being thatpeople would be unlikely to leave fromelsewhere in Britain at this time asthere was no problem for them.The second influx is the one we are

more familiar with – the movement ofpeople, and particularly so called“Celtic” saints or holy men, fromwestern Britain and Ireland in thesixth century. This fits well with RogerWhite's thesis (see end note), thatwestern Britain remained “Roman”longest, essentially into the sixth andseventh centuries. I like this idea.So what is there in Brittany that

reflects these events? Firstly there areseveral surviving Roman churches.Locmaria on the outskirts of Quimperhas much Roman structure remaining.At Langon a small Roman building,which may have been a temple or part

Mick Aston reports on his historical travels for every issue of British Archaeology

50|British Archaeology|January February 2012

Mick at a holy wellnear a cliff-topchapel at St They

Roman buildingconverted to achurch in Langon

Mick searches Brittany for earlychapels, crosses and holy wells

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of a baths complex, has survived as asmall church, formerly, and mostunlikely, dedicated to St Venus.There are a number of places where

pre-existing pagan or prehistoricmonuments have been made Christianby early converts. Two in particularstand out: the St Duzec menhir(Penvern, Côtes d'Armor) and themenhir called the Croix des DouzeApôtres (Cross of the TwelveApostles) at Logonna Daoulas. Thegreat standing stone at Duzec hassymbols of the passion of Christcarved in 1674 and a cross on top. TheTwelve Apostles stone stands at acrossroads; it has the apostles carvedbeneath a figure of Christ. Others include the great prehistoric

burial chamber of Tumulus St Michelat Carnac with a chapel on top, and thestanding stones in the churchyard atPlozévet. At the Chapelle-des-Sept-

British Archaeology|January February 2012|51

Christianisedmenhir at St Duzec,carved withinstruments ofChrist’s passion

A prehistoric burialchamber convertedinto a crypt beneaththe Chapelle-des-Sept-Saints

The Romanesquechurch of St Gildasdu Rhuys

The Chapelle-des-Sept-Saints,Lannion, Côtesd’Armor

Saints near Lannion the chapel is builton top of a burial chamber which actsas the crypt under the southerntransept; though the present church is1702–14 it probably stands on the siteof an earlier one. The “seven saints”seems to refer to skeletons found inthe prehistoric tomb. At St Trophine and Loctudy, iron

age period steles or memorialmonuments, characteristic of parts ofwestern Brittany, have been adoptedand adapted as Christian monuments.The former site also has the probableremains of a saint's shrine and thereare a number of these around Brittany.Most seem to be housed in separatechapels and buildings near or alongsidelarger churches – rather like the Welshcapel y bedd, where the saint's boneslay in a separate above-ground chapelrather than in an elaborate crypt underthe east end of the church, a much

more Romano-Gaulish tradition(there seem to be very few crypts inBrittany, with rare examples such asQuimperlé and Lanmeur).The best example of a separate

shrine is at Locronan, where adjacentto the church, but attached, is aseparate late medieval chapel with theshrine, an elaborate stone monument,formerly with the relics of St Cronan.There are less elaborate shrines andfeatures associated with saintselsewhere. At Landeleau the “saint'sbed” or resting place is a piece ofRoman sculpture, and at Besné rockoutcrops at the early chapel site arecalled the “saint's bed” of St Second.Early medieval monasteries seem to

have existed at St Matthieu, St

Melaine (in Rennes) and Locoal, andprobably at Locmine and Locronan.But the most important were at Dol,Landevennec and Redon – the mostimportant monastery in easternBrittany. There were early cathedralsat Dol, Alet, St Brieuc, Quimper,Vannes and St Pol de Leon.

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Late medieval wallpainting in thechurch at Stival,with an earlymedieval bellserving as a“bonnet”

By far the finest collections ofmedieval reliquaries are atLandevennec and St Gildas de Rhuys.The former is a fine early monastic siteat the landward end of a long narrowcoastal inlet (known as a ria). It hasbeen excavated and laid out for visitorsand has a very useful museum attached.Here in the ruins of the east end of thelater medieval monastic church is thetomb of St Guénolé, and the relicsassociated with him have now beengathered from churches round about.Especially fine is a silver and gilt bustreliquary of Fragan from the church ofSt Fregant.At St Gildas de Rhuys, on a

peninsula opposite the most famousprehistoric sites, is a fine Romanesquechurch with the relics of St Gildas keptin a cupboard in the vestry: a silver andgilt head, limb shrines and objectsassociated with the saint. There musthave been much more. In the museumat Landevennec there is a fine ivorycross from the early monastery at StMatthieu, which had been kept at thechurch of Milizac. If these are the most elaborate,

other places have sarcophagi like thatat St Molvan and the wooden bedshrine of St Gobrien at St Servant surOust. There are also Celtic saints' bellsat a number of places. Such items arewell-known from early medievalIreland, Wales and Scotland: there areeven a few known in Cornwall andwestern England. At Stival nearPontivy a later wall-painting shows thesaint's bell being used to cure a person

with head problems (or a mentalcondition). Several of these bells arehoused in the museum atLandevennec.Many of the saints of Brittany are

connected with Wales, Cornwall andIreland, reflecting, I think, the secondinflux of immigrants referred to above.St Samson, for example, who camefrom Wales (see Mick's travels Jul/Aug2008/101) via Cornwall, established amonastery at Dol where his tomb lies,and a hermitage on the prominent hill,Mont Dol. Gildas, of course, if it is thesame person, is associated with theWest Country in the sixth century. Hewrote the manuscript De ExidioBritanniae (On the Ruin of Britain)castigating the early medieval leadersof Wales and the West Country. On the west coast of Brittany, Aber

Ildut reminds us of the important

Welsh saint at Llanilltud Fawr (nowLlantwit Major). The Breton site ofLanildut has a small church with stepsfrom the end of the churchyard downto a cove. At Belz an island, now linked

by a causeway, has a church and welldedicated to St Cado. In the church isa stone structure said to be the bed ofCado, where pilgrims hoped for amiracle and prayed with their head in ahole in the stonework. St Cado is StCadog, the great Welsh saint ofLlancarfan in south Wales.Evidence for early medieval Brittany

is rather more difficult to find than thenumerous megaliths, but it is worthstraying off the normal tracks to seesome chapel, holy well or cross sitefrom this period. Over much of theBreton countryside there are largenumbers of chapels and holy wells,rather like in Cornwall and Wales. Thestructures that exist today areinvariably late medieval or later, butthe assumption, as in Britain, is thatthese are often in origin early medievalsites. There has been little excavationanywhere to demonstrate this.Visiting areas like Brittany, I find,helps with the context andunderstanding of similar sites in areasof western Britain – Wales, Cornwalland Scotland.

When in France I find Atlas de la Francede l'An Mil (Picard 1994) invariablyuseful to find the main sites. Pierre-RolandGiot's The British Settlement of Brittany(Tempus 2003, see Books Sep 2003/72) isuseful, though poorly referenced andindexed. Roger White's Britannia Prima:Britain's Last Roman Province (HistoryPress 2007) is thought-provoking. Goodgazetteers can be found in Aubrey Burl’sMegalithic Brittany (Thames & Hudson1985) and Jeremy Knight’s Roman France(Tempus 2001), which includes later sites

Wooden shrine of StGobrien above astone sarcophagus inthe church of StServant sur Oust

Nave and chancel ofmonastic church atLandevennec,Finistère

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