RENNES
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RENNES
Roman post of Aleth. Two legendary biographies
of him which date from the ninth century mal;c him
the first Bishop of Aleth. The biography of King
Saint Judicael, written in the eleventh century,
mentions as a contemporary of the king, a Saint
Maelmon, Bishop of Aleth. Local breviaries of
the fifteenth centurj', mention three bishops prior
to Maelmon: Enogat, Gurval, and Coalfinit. In
Mgr Duchesne's opinion one thing only is certam
that the Diocese of Aleth existed in Charlemagne's
time. The town of Aleth was destroyed by the
Normans, and soon after 1141, the seat of the diocese
was removed to the Isle of St. Aaron (so-called after
a hermit who lived there early in the sixth century),
on which stood the town afterwards known as St.
Malo. This change was endorsed by Eugene III
in spite of the protests of the monks of Marmoutiers
who had a foundation on the island. Among the
bishops of St. Malo are: Blessed John de la Grille
(1144-63) under whom the see was transferred; William
de Montfort (142:5-32), cardinal in 1426; William Bri-
5onnet (1493-1513); Harlay de Sancy (1632-46).
III. Diocese of Dol. — The Life of St. Sam.son, which cannot be of earlier date than the seventh cen- tury, mentions the foundation of the monastery of Dol by St. Samson. He was doubtless already a bishop when he came from Great Britain to Armorica, and it is he perhaps who a.ssisted at the Council of Paris be- tween 561 and 567. But in the biography there is nothing to prove that he founded the See of Dol or that he was its first bishop. In the twelfth century, to support its claim against the Metropolitan of Tours, the Church of Dol produced the names of a long list of archbishops: St. Samson, St. Magloire, St. Budoc, St. G6nev6e, St. Restoald, St. Armel, St. Jumael, St. Turian. Mgr Duchesne discounts and doubts this list. He is of the opinion that the abbey of Dol may have had at its head from time to time abbots with episcopal jurisdiction, but that Dol was not the seat of a diocese. Under Charlemagne and Louis the Pious, the Vicariate of Dol and the monastery of St. Meen were still included in the Diocese of Aleth; so that the first Bishop of Dol was Festianus (Fcstgen) mentioned for the first time be- tween Sol and 857, and installed by King Nomenoe. Among the bishops of Dol are: Baudri (1107-30), author of a poem on the conquest of England by William the Conqueror; .Alain, Cardinal de Coetivy (1456-74), as legate of Callistus III, brought Charles VH to assist the Greeks against the Turks who were besieging Constantinople; Urban Rene de Herc6 (1767-95), emigrated to England during the Revolu- tion, but accompanied to Brittany the royalist troops who attempted to land at Quiberon. He was arrested with his brother, and shot at Vannes, 3 July, 1795. There was a struggle from the ninth to the eleventh century to free the Church of Brittany from the Metropolitan of Tours. It is important to consider the point closely.
From a comparison made by Mgr Duchesne be- tween the Life of St. Conwoion, the "Indiculus de episcoporum Britonum depositione", and an almost comjiletely restored letter of Leo IV, it would ap- pear that shortly before 850, Nomenoe wishing to be anointed king, and finding opposition among the prel- ates of Brittany, sought to get rid of them by charg- ing them with simony. Their only fault was perhaps that they demanded eulogia from their priests when t he lat ter came to synods. After listening to a deputa- tion of Breton bishops and to St. Conwoion, founder of the Abbeyof St-Sauveur at Redon,who had been sent to Rome by Nomenoe, Leo IV declared that the charge of .simony must be adjudicated by a competent tribu- nal of twelve bishops, and must be attested by seventy- two witnesses, thereby disputing Nomenoe's claim to a right to depose bishops. But Nomenoe did de- pose, and in a 'orutal manner, the four bishops of
Vannes: Aleth, Quimper, and St. Pol de I^icon, and
made seven dioceses out of their four; one of the new
dioceses had its seat in the abbey of Dol and became
straightway an archdiocese. The remaining two
were in the monasteries of St. Brieue and Pabu-
Tutual (Treguier). At the end of 850 or beginning
of 851 the bishops of the four provinces of Tours,
Sens, Reims, and Rouen, wrote a letter of reprimand
to Nomenoe and threatened him with excommunica-
tion. He paid no heed to them and died 7 March,
851. Salomon, Nomenoe's second successor, re-
quested Benedict IV in vain to regularize the situa-
tion of the Breton hierarchy. In the name of the
Council of Savonnieres (859) the seven metropoli-
tans of the three kingdoms of Charles the Bald, of
Lothaire II, and of Charles of Provence, wrote to the
Bishop of Rennes and to the bishops occupying the
new Sees of Dol, St. Brieue, and Treguier, reproach-
ing them with lack of obedience to the Metropolitan
of Tours. This letter was not sent to the Bishops
of Vannes, Quimper, Aleth, and St. Pol de L6on who
wrongly occujjied the sees of the legitimate bishops
illegally deposed by Nomenoe. It achieved nothing.
In 862 Salomon dealt directly with Nicholas I, and at
first tried to mislead the pope by means of false
allegations and forgeries; then he restored Felix
of Quimper and Liberalis of L6on to their sees, but
still kept Susannus of Vannes and Salocon of Aleth
in exile. Nicholas I died in 867. Adrian II (867-
72) and John VIII (872-82) continued to uphold
the rights of the Metropolitan of Tours. Then came
the deaths of Salomon and of Susannus, and a con-
ciliatory mood devolopeil. There was no formal
act on the part of the Holy See recognizing Dol as a
new metropolitan church; it never had control over
Rennes or Nantes, and it was mainly over the new
Sees of St. Brieue and Treguier that it exercised
ascendancy. Finally in May, 1199, Innocent III
restored the old order of things, and subordinated
anew all Brittany to Tours but did not interfere with
the diocesan boundaries .set up by the daring No-
menoe, and they remained in force until the Revolu-
tion. The Bishop of Dol retained until 1789 the
