The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1903-09-17
REMAIN AND BRITTANY.

The clerical demonstrations carried
out in Brittany against Premier Com
hes when he went thither recently,
to unveil the memorial to Renan, gives
special interest to Remains own de-
scripticn of his native village 1t is
contained in one of the latest works of
the great nationalist, his "Recollections
of My Childhood and Youth" What
Renan wrote is thus freely, but it is
believed faithfully translated.
Treguier, my native village is an an
cient monastery founded in the latter
years of the fifth century by Saint
Tudwal or Tual one of the religious
chiefs of those great migrations which
carried into the Armorican peninsula
the race and the religious institutions
of Great Britain. A strong monastic
color was the dominant trait of this
British Christianity. There We're no
bishops, at least not among the emf
grants. Their first care after their ar
rival on the soil of the hospitable pen
insula, of which the northern side must
have been then very sparsely peopled,
was to establish great converts, whose
abbots were the pastors of the sur
rounding population. A sacred circle
of one or two leagues, which was call
ed the Minihi, surrounded the monas-
terry and enjoyed some important inn
munities.
MonaSterieS, in the Breton tongue
were called pabu, from the name of the
monks (papae) The monastery of Ire
guier was thus called Pabu Tual. It
KKTa the pp1ipioI1G cantar Of a that RI
of the peninsula which extends toward
the north. The similar monasteries of
Saint-Pol-d e-Leon, of Saint Brieuc, of
Saint-Malo, of Saint-Samson, near
DOL played on the surrounding sides
a similar role. They We're, if one may
so express himself, dioceses, though in
these regions, separated from the rest
of Christianity. were ignored the power
of Rome and the religious institutions
which reigned in the Latin world, and
in particular in the Gallic-Roman
towns of Rennes and Nantes, distant
from them a long way.
When Nomenoe, in the ninth century
organized for the fist time in a regu-
lar manner, this society of semi-sav-
age immigrants, and created the
Duchy of Britanny by adding to the
country which spoke Breton the Earl
dom of Brittany, established by the
Carlovignians to maintain their au-
thority in the west, he felt the need of
extending to his duchy the religious
organization of the rest of the world.
He wanted this northern region to
have bishops like the countries of Rem
les, Nantes, and Vannes. To that end
ne erected into bishoprics the great
monasteries of Saint-Pol- de-Leon, Ire |
guier, Saint-Brieuc, Saint-Malo, and |
Dol. He wanted also to have an arch
bishop, and thus to form an ecclesias- |
teal province apart from any other. |
He employed all the pious frauds then /
known TO prove that Saint Samson had |
been a Metropolitan bishop. But the /
,redulity of the church was at this |
ime too much curbed, to allow any |
UGH fiction to be accepted, and the |
'ew bishops were obliged to attach |
IemselVes to the nearest Gallic-Ro- !
an province, Tours.
The reasons for these obscure origins /
I'VE been lost with time. From the |
me of "Pabu Tual," Papa Tual,"
scovered, it is said, on some ancient |
pestries, it has been concluded that |
int Tudwal was a pope. The thing |
very simple. Saint Tudwal made a |
lrney to Rom - he was so eXemp-
% ~ an ecclesiastic, that, naturally,
cardinals having made his ac-
aintance, chose him for the vacant
one. Such things happen every day.
pious people of Treguier are very
,ud of the pontifica,e of their patron
mt. More conservative ecclesiastics,
wever. avow that they have difficult
in recognizing in the papal lists, the y