RENNES. – City and archdiocese in France, prefectural seat of the department of Ille-et-Vilaine; the latter river divides the city into two parts: the older is on the right bank, the other, on the left bank, was formed especially in the 19th century. It has an area of 6,737 sq km corresponding to that of the department of Ille-et-Vilaine and a population of 578,300 inhabitants, of whom 555,000 are Catholics distributed among the three archdeaconries of R., St-Malo and Dol, with 389 parishes served by 1,130 diocesan priests and 150 regular clergy; it has a major seminary in R. and a minor seminary in Châteaugiron, 55 male religious communities and 435 female ones (Ann. Pont. 1952, p. 337).
In Roman times it was the capital of the “Redones,” whence its present name. As capital of Brittany it was contested in the 14th century by John of Montfort and Charles of Blois; the Parliament of Brittany often sat there in the 15th century (the building is now the Law Courts); the city was decimated by plague in 1632 and in 1720 devastated by a seven-day fire; the entire town suffered greatly from the bombings of 1940–44, during which the church of St Martin was also destroyed. The diocese was a suffragan of Tours until 1790, when it was elevated to an archdiocese with the title of metropolitan of the northwestern department, with the dioceses of Le Mans, Laval, Angers, Nantes, Vannes, Quimper and St-Brieuc as suffragans. In 1802 it became once more a simple diocese, returning to being a suffragan of Tours; it was erected again as an archdiocese by Pius IX on 3 Jan. 1859. To the archdiocese were united the territories of the ancient dioceses of Dol and St-Malo, whose titles the archbishop still retains.
The name of the bishop of 453 is uncertain. Athenius was at the Council of Tours in 461; Melanius at that of Orléans in 511. Gregory of Tours recounts a miracle that occurred in the church where he was buried (In gloria confessorum, 54); the Hieronymian Martyrology indicates his consecration on 6 Jan. and his deposition on 6 Nov. Fide-diofu was at the Council of Orléans in 549; Victurius at Tours in 567: he attended the dedication of the cathedral of Nantes (Venantius Fortunatus, Carmina, III, 5). Aimoaldus, already archdeacon of Mans, was at the Council of Paris in 614. Moderannus retired to the monastery of Berceto near Lucca c. 720. Wernarius was present at Germigny in 843: the Synod of Savonnières wrote to him in 859. Elertramus was consecrated in 866. Also remembered are: the hymnographer Marbod (1096–1123); Ivo Mayeud of the Order of Preachers (1597–1641); Arnaud d’Ossat (1596–1600), created cardinal in 1599; Le Coz (1760–1815); Godefroy Brossais Saint-Marc (1848–78), cardinal from 1875; Charles F. Place (1878–93), cardinal from 1886; G. Labouré (1893–1906), cardinal from 1897; A. Dubourg (1906–21); Card. A. Charost (1921–31).
The Cathedral, dedicated to St Peter, was begun in 1787 to replace the previous one in ruins, and completed in 1844. The towers of the classical façade in three orders were begun in 1541. The interior is divided into three naves by columns of red marble; at the crossing of the transept rises the dome. It contains the monuments of Card. Charost (1939) and Abp. Mignen (1930). The church of St-Germain is in 15th-century Gothic with a 16th-century façade and square tower. The basilica of St-Sauveur was completed c. 1730. Inside, the ancient image of Notre-Dame des Miracles et Vertus is greatly venerated, to which the liberation from the English siege in 1357 is attributed.
These two churches were raised to the dignity of minor basilicas in 1916. The church of St-Aubin or Notre-Dame de Bonne-Nouvelle, with a much-venerated 14th-century image of the Madonna, is a modern building in 13th-century Gothic style. The present church of Toussaint is the former chapel of the Jesuit college, with a façade flanked by two towers (1624–51). Modern is the church of St Teresa of Lisieux. The ancient Benedictine abbey church of St-Melaine, now Notre-Dame, was rebuilt in the 14th century; the interior has three naves with a still Romanesque transept; on the north side of the church survives a 17th-century wing of the abbey and a cloister gallery with arches decorated with angels. The present Jardin du Thabor, a public promenade, is part of the former abbey garden. The abbey of St George, founded in 1032 by Duke Alan III and rebuilt by Abbess M. de la Fayette in 1670, was turned into a barracks and later adapted for municipal services. The abbey of the Most Holy Saviour at Redon was founded c. 1825 by St Conwoïon, destroyed in 860, restored in the 10th century, passed to the Congregation of St Maur in 1628. It formerly belonged to the diocese of Vannes. The 13th-century abbey church is now a parish church; the monastery houses a college of Eudist Fathers (Cottineau, II, cols. 2422–23). Other shrines are: Notre-Dame-des-Marais at Fougères; Notre-Dame-de-Paimpont, Notre-Dame-de-la-Peinière at St-Didier. R. is a university centre; the Faculty of Letters and the Public Library are housed in the former seminary; there is a chair of Celtic languages and the Annales de Bretagne are published there; the Library contains over 160,000 volumes, 115 incunabula and 652 manuscripts, many of them illuminated; among these are the cartulary of the abbey of St Melanius, a codex of the Legenda aurea, one of the Roman de la Rose, one of the Holy Grail, etc. R. also possesses an archaeological museum, begun with the collection of the Marquis de Robien (18th century), with a lapidary museum, Egyptian, Greek, Etruscan and Roman antiquities partly from the Campana collection, antique furniture, porcelain, bronzes, miniatures, a Breton museum, one of natural sciences and a Musée des Beaux-Arts with sculptures and paintings of the French, Flemish and Italian schools.
From the diocese of R. come St Gelduin (d. c. 1076); the Venerable Robert of Arbrissel, founder of Fontevrault (d. 1117); the Bl. Ralph de la Fontenelle who founded c. 1096 the abbey of St-Sulpice in R.; St Ivo (1253–1303); the Venerable John of St-Samson of the Carmelites (d. 1636); the Venerable P. Quirien O.P. (d. 1629); the philologist Tournemine of the Society of Jesus (1661–1739); Jacques Cartier (1494–1552), discoverer of Canada; from St-Malo, R. Chateaubriand (1768–1848).
Dol. — In the 6th century, Bishop St Samson founded a monastery at the mouth of the small river Guioult after coming from England. In 1848, Nominoë was crowned there by the Bretons; the bishop of Dol then became archbishop and primate of Brittany until 1109. The city was repeatedly sacked by the Normans and occupied by Henry II of England in 1164; John Lackland burned the cathedral in 1203; Dol was retaken the following year by Guy of Thouars; the English reoccupied it in 1758. The last bishop, Msgr. de Hercé, was shot in Vannes in 1795; the diocese was suppressed by the Concordat. The cathedral of St Samson is in pure Norman Gothic style of the 13th century with additions made between the 14th and 16th centuries. Traces of the earlier building, burned in 1203, remain on the façade. The interior is 100 m long, with a central nave of seven bays supported by cylindrical pillars formed by four columns; the side aisles have no chapels, except that of St Maglorius on the right, added in the 14th century. In the south transept is an octagonal 16th-century baptismal font; to the north is the tomb of Bishop Thomas James (1504); the choir ends in a rectangular ambulatory with side chapels. The 14th-century stained glass depicts stories of Abraham, the childhood and Passion of Our Lord, St Samson, St Catherine of Alexandria, St Margaret, the first six bishops of Rennes, and others from Léon, Tréguier, St-Brieuc, Aleth, Vannes, Quimper, and the Last Judgment. On the high altar is a 14th-century wooden statue of the Blessed Virgin.
St. Malo-Aleth. — A Gallo-Roman city, Alethum, at the estuary of the Rance; around the mid-6th century, the inhabitants proclaimed the monk Malo as bishop. From the 8th century onward, however, the city was repeatedly sacked by Norman raids and destroyed in 1141; in the 12th century, Bishop John of Châtillon transferred the see to the island of Aaron (named after a 6th-century hermit), where the tomb of St Malo or Maclou was located. Aleth was finally destroyed by St Louis in 1236. But by the end of the 13th century, it began to revive with a parish dedicated to St Servan, whence the name of the new city, which became a distinct municipality in 1788. A wooden statue of Notre-Dame-de-la-Croix-du-Fief is venerated there. Opposite the north transept is the chapel of St Aaron, on the site where he is said to have lived and been buried. Bishop John of Châtillon of Aleth built the cathedral dedicated to St Vincent, which today presents a 16th-century façade with a 15th-century central tower, damaged in 1944. The interior still preserves the original central nave with square pillars and Romanesque capitals, with the minor Gothic naves flanked by chapels from the 15th and 16th centuries. Among the bishops remembered are Bl. John de la Grille (1144–63), William of Montfort (1423–32), cardinal from 1426, William Briçonnet (1493–1513), and Harlay de Sancy (1632–46).