[FIRST BRETON BISHOP.]

A.D. 461. First Breton Bishop recorded a.

CONC. TURON. I.-[Among the signatures,] Mansuetus Episcopus Britannorum interfui et subscripsi. [Labb., IV. 1053.]

[COUNCIL OF VANNES.]

conjectures. The Bishops of Nantes and Rennes were also present at the Tours Council, and were plainly not Bishops "Britannorum." The Acta of S. Winwaloë of Landevenec, and those of S. Brioc, also point to the earlier half of this century. And while no doubt there were Christians in Armorica during Roman times, all the British immigrations-beginning A.D. 387 (and continuing until c. A.D. 570)—were of Christian Britons. Yet the Acta S. Melanii (said to have died after A.D. 530) describe the Veneti as "tunc temporis pene omnes gentiles" (Actt. SS. Jan. 6, I. c. IV. § 23). And those of S. Paul of Léon (Bishop there from A.D. 512) testify to the continuance of heathenism in that district also down to that date.

A.D. 465. Council of Vannes, to ordain S. Padarn (II.) of Vannes a. CONC. VENET.-[The synodical letter prefixed to the council states, in the name of the subscribing Bishops, that] Nos in ecclesia Venetica causa ordinandi Episcopi congregavit: [and among the signatures is] Paternus Episcopus subscripsi. [Labb., IV. 1054, 1057.]

a Perpetuus of Tours presided, and five Bishops besides Paternus, not Britons, were present, or assented, together with two Bishops whose sees are not known, sc. Albinus and Liberalis, conjectured by Stapleton (Rot. Scacc. Norman., I. xli.) to have been respectively Bishops of Quimper and Aleth, as being the only sees unaccounted for. Obviously

Brittany was still reckoned without dispute as within the province of Tours. Can. 15 of

the council enacts an uniform "ordo sacrorum," and "consuetudo psallendi,” and “ unam officiorum regulam," within "provincia nostra:" a canon possibly suggested by Briton immigration.

(Probably) A.D. 475 × 480. Faustus the Bréton, Abbat of Lerins, and then Bishop of Rieza.

......

SIDON. APOLLIN., Epist. IX. 9.-SIDONIUS APOLLINARIS Domino Papæ Fausto. Legi volumina tua, quæ Riochatus, Antistes ac monachus atque istius mundi bis peregrinus, Britannis tuis pro te reportat. ... Hic igitur ipse venerabilis, apud oppidum nostrum dum moraretur donec gentium concitatarum procella defremeret, etc. Sed post duos aut iis amplius menses sic quoque a nobis cito profectum, etc. etc. [Galland., X. 546.]

......

Gratia, from Riez, Faustus' see (A.D. 472494), to Aleth (if that were indeed Riochat's see-nothing is recorded of him elsewhere), or at any rate to Brittany; and in his journey passed through Clermont in Auvergne, Sido

[SEE OF LEON.]

nius' see in A.D. 472-484; and stopped there two months and more on account of the wars, no doubt those of the Britons, Romans, and Visigoths, A.D. 477 x 481. Faustus wrote his work about A.D. 475, and was driven into exile about A.D. 481. Sidonius also writes to King Riothamus, the Bréton King,

respecting certain slaves, stolen "Britannis clam solicitantibus" (Epist. III. 9; Galland., X. 488). Respecting Faustus' semipelagianism, and the councils of Arles, Lyons, Orange, and Valence, on the subject, see Voss. Hist. Pelag.,

etc.

A.D. 511. A Bréton Bishop at a Council of Orleans.

CONC. AURELIAN. I.—[Among the signatures,] Modestus Episcopus Ecclesiæ Veneticæ a. [Labb., IV. 1410.]

a "Litharedus Oxomensis," named next before Modestus, can hardly have been (as has been guessed) Bishop of Seez, or of the Osismii at (at this date) Quimper. The

editor of the Gallia Christiana (XIV. 873, 971) supposes him to have been a bishop of uncertain or even unsettled see in the district of the Léonois.

A.D. 512. See of Léon, or of the Osismii, taken out of that of Quimper, and erected by Childebert, irrespectively of the See of Tours a.

ACTA S. PAULI LEON.-Childebertus vero Rex eum (Paulum) a terra elevans, et cujusdam præsulis baculum accipiens, Suscipe, inquit, pastoralem gradum, quo officio queas prodesse saluti plurimorum. Et evocatis tribus Episcopis, qui eum benedicerent, vir Dei, perfusus lacrymis, volens nolens suscepit quod multo tempore distulit. Cui benedicto statim Rex gloriosus Agnensem Leonensemque pagos, cum sibi debito redditu, Regiæ auctoritatis præcepto tradidit. [Fo. a Bosco, Biblioth. Floriac., I. 423.]

a The account of the details of the act here recorded dates probably after the time of Charlemagne. The establishment of the see by the King, and the consecration of Paul by Bishops at court and not at Tours, are no doubt facts. The Chronicles assign various dates for the transaction-one as late as A.D. 580. But the Childebert intended was probably the first of the name, King of Paris A.D. 511-558. And Paul is said to have been aided, when an old man, by Judwal of Brittany, who was Count about A.D. 550, and 4th in descent from the Riwallus who came to Brittany in A.D. 513. The existence and authority of a Frank Count at Léon, at whose

request Childebert is said to have acted, agrees also with the beginning more than with the end of Childebert's reign, the Franks at the former period being more masters of Brittany than they were at the latter. If Samson came to Dol at this same date, then that see also was possibly founded, and for the influx of British immigrants. But this would seem to belong to the somewhat later immigration of the middle of the century: if indeed Dol was ever a Bishop's see at all until Nomenoë made it so in A.D. 845. The legend of S. Samson (in Lib. Landav.) calls it a "monastery throughout, without any hint of a bishopric there at that time.

A.D. 520. Foundation of the British Monastery of Ruys by Gildas.

44, 45, note t, it must have been at least 20 years later.

[EASTER QUESTION.]

A.D. 541. Easter question raised at the 4th Council of Orleansa.

CONC. AURELIAN. IV. can. 1.-Placuit itaque, Deo propitio, ut sanctum Pascha secundum laterculum Victorii ab omnibus sacerdotibus uno tempore celebretur. Quæ festivitas annis singulis ab Episcopo Epiphaniorum die in ecclesia populis denuntietur. De qua solennitate quoties aliquid dubitatur, inquisita vel agnita per metropolitanos a Sede Apostolica sacra constitutio teneatur. [Labb., V. 381 b.]

a Injuriosus of Tours, and Eumerius of Nantes, are among the signatures to this council, but no name of any Bréton Bishop. Nor does any Bréton Bishop occur in Frank councils, except Samson in A.D. 555 or 557,who was a Bishop but almost certainly not a Bréton Bishop, and the questionable Cadoenus, supposed to be of Aleth, at Rouen in A.D. 682. Brittany was evidently becoming severed from Tours, since the establishment of the Frank

kingdom, and the great British immigrations into Brittany, had brought about a difference of race between the two, and continual Frank and Bréton wars besides.

b A.D. 529 x 561, one "Joannes Reclausus, presbyter, natione Britto," is mentioned as having a cell at Chinon, and as being an adviser of the Frank Queen, Radegund (Greg. Tur., De Glor. Confess. 23; Baudoniv. in V. S. Radegund. § iv.).

A.D. 553 × 561. Synod of Bréton Bishops excommunicates Macliaus
Bishop of Vannes a.

GREG. TURON., Hist. Franc., IV. 4.—Macliavus, de sub terra consurgens, Veneticam urbem expetiit, ibique tonsuratus et Episcopus ordinatus est. Mortuo autem Chanaone, hic apostatavit, et demissis capillis, uxorem, quam post clericatum reliquerat, cum regno fratris simul accepit; sed ab Episcopis excommunicatus est.

a Chanao, Count of Brittany in A.D. 553, murdered three of his brothers, but failed in his attempt to murder the fourth, Macliaus, who was first hidden in the way above hinted by Count Conober, and then protected by his Episcopate. Upon Chanao's death he seized

the Countship, which he held with his Bishopric, in spite of excommunication, until he was himself assassinated (Greg. Tur., ib.), which must have been before A.D. 577, as in that year one Ennius appears as Bishop of Vannes (Id., V. 25).

A.D. 555 or 557. Welsh or Bréton Bishops at Paris a.

Samson peccator Episcopus

CONC. PARISIENS. III.-[Among the signatures,] Paternus peccator Episcopus consensi et subscripsi. consensi et subscripsi. [Labb., V. 818.]

a No sees are mentioned. The South Welsh Samson, according to his legend (see vol. I. p. 149), went to Dol, being a Bishop already; and living there until his death, took an active part

in procuring the restoration of Judwal to the Countship of Brittany c. A.D. 550 by the help of King Childebert, and in opposing a usurper called Commorus, mentioned also in the

[ss. MACLOVIUS AND MAGLORIUS.]

Lives of Gildas and of Paternus (= probably Conober, slain by the Franks A.D. 560, Greg. Tur., IV. 20). He was also contemporary with King Childebert I., A.D. 511-558. (See also next article.) His Archbishopric at Dol (which probably was not even a Bishopric until A.D. 845) is a fiction of the same kind with that of the like Archbishopric at S.David's: as are also, it need hardly be said, the story of the York Archbishopric and pall, and the locating S. Samson himself at S. David's. And his connection with Childebert sufficiently accounts for his presence at Paris, without making him a Bréton Bishop. The legend of S. Teilo, which brings him also to S. Samson at Dol for a time, and that of Oudoceus, making him son of one Budic who comes from Cornwall to Armorica to be prince of the latter country, shew at all events a close intercourse in this century between South Wales, Cornwall, and Brittany. As does also the legend of Padarn of Llanbadarn (see above,

name,

vol. I. p. 159); to be mentioned here in order to distinguish him, not only from the Bishops of Vannes of the previous century, but from the "Paternus" (of Avranches) above in the text, who was probably a Bréton from his but lived and died at S. Pair d'Avranches, not at that time in Brittany (see the V.S. Paterni by Venant. Fort., his contemporary). The Welsh legend of the Padarn of Llanbadarn (Cambro-Brit. SS.), composed after the 9th century (for it speaks of seven sees in Brittany), makes him also Bishop of Vannes, and connects him with S. Samson of Dol. It was obviously written to exempt Vannes from subjection to Dol. See also the History of Gildas for another instance of British and Bréton intercourse. The legends of S. Cadoc and S. Illtyd also take those saints to Armorica (Cambro-Brit. SS.). And although S. David himself is not taken thither, yet his legend and memory were familiar there (see below, Append. D.).

A.D. 561, 566. Further immigration of Britons into Brittany in connection with Maclou, Maglorius a, etc.

SIGEBERT, Chron. ad an. 561.—Machutes, qui et Maglorius b, regulariter educatus et ipsius [sc. Brendani] navigationis socius, in Britannia [i. e. Armorica] sanctitate et miraculis claruit: qui a Britannis exacerbatus, eis maledictis, transivit ad Gallias, et sub Leontio Santonum Episcopo multo tempore virtutibus claruit; Britannis vero propter suam maledictionem variis cladibus affectis, data rursus benedictione, absolvit et sanavit.-—ID., in an. 566.-Samson Dolensis Archiepiscopus consanguineus Sancti Maclovii, et successor Samsonis Maglorius, qui de transmarina Britannia ad cismarinam transierunt Britanniam, clarent sanctitate et doctrina.-VIT. S. MAGLORII.— (Maglorius) ad prædicandum populo ejusdem linguæ, in occidente consistenti, mare transfretavit, properans finibus territorii Dolensis. [Morice, I.]

a Maglovius became Bishop of Aleth, afterwards (viz. about A.D. 1062) transferred to S. Malo; Maglorius succeeded Samson at Dol: according to their legends, referred to below in Append. B. They were both from Glamorgan or Gwent, and connected with Samson. For the many legendary lives of Britons who came to Brittany, from A.D. 450 to A.D. 600, mainly, but a few also in the following century, see below in Append. B. It really looks possible, that if Dol was at first only a monastery in the see of Aleth, with probably enough (occasionally) episcopal ab

bats (and this is rendered almost certain by Nomenoë's reckoning in A.D. 845, that he found four sees and left seven, viz. by adding S. Brieuc, Treguier, and Dol as a separate see, to Vannes, Quimper, Léon, and Aleth,—and see Stapleton as before quoted, I. xlv. note), then that Maglovius and Maglorius were one and the same person. At any rate Maglorius was probably no more than abbat (perhaps episcopal) of the monastery of Dol.

b The best edition of Sigebert (Pertz, VI. 318) reads Maclovus instead of Maglorius.