RENNES. - City and archdiocese in France, capital of the prefecture of the department of Ille-et-Vilaine; the latter river divides the city into two parts: the older one is on the right bank, the other, on the left, was mainly formed 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 regulars; it has a major seminary at R. and a minor seminary at 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 resided there in the 15th century (the building is today the Palace of Justice); the city was decimated by the plague in 1632 and in 1720 devastated by a fire that lasted seven days; the whole town suffered greatly from the bombardments of 1940-44, in 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 again became a simple diocese, returning to being a suffragan of Tours; it was erected anew 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 retains.
The name of the bishop of 453 is not certain. Atenio was at the Council of Tours in 461; Melanio at that of Orléans in 511: Gregory of Tours recounts a miracle that took place in the church where the latter was buried (In gloria confessorum, 54); the Hieronymian Martyrology indicates 6 Jan. as his consecration and 6 Nov. as his deposition. Fibediolo was at the Council of Orléans in 549; Victorio at Tours in 567: he took part in the dedication of the cathedral of Nantes (Venantius Fortunatus, Carmina, III, 5). Aimoaldo, formerly archdeacon of Mans, was at the Council of Paris in 614. Moderanno withdrew to the monastery of Berceto near Lucca ca. 720. Wernario was present at Germigny in 843: the Synod of Savonnières wrote to him in 859. Elettramno was consecrated in 866. Also remembered are: the hymnographer Marbod (1096-1123); Ivo Mayeuc of the Order of Preachers (1507-41); Arnaud d'Ossat (1596-1600), created cardinal in 1599; Le Coz (1760-1815); Geoffroy Brossais St-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, replacing the previous one in ruins, and completed in 1844. The towers of the classical facade in three orders were begun in 1541. The interior is divided into three naves by columns of red marble; in the crossing of the transept rises the dome. It contains the monuments of Card. Charost (1939) and of Msgr. Mignen (1930). The church of St-Germain is in 15th-century Gothic with a facade and square tower of the 16th century. The basilica of St. Saviour was completed ca. 1730. In the interior the ancient image of Notre-Dame des Miracles et Vertus is much venerated, to which the liberation from the English siege in 1357 is attributed.
These two churches were elevated in 1916 to the dignity of minor basilicas. The church of St-Aubin or Notre-Dame de Bonne-nouvelle, with a much venerated image of the Madonna of the 14th century, is a modern building in 13th-century Gothic style. The present church of Toussaint is the ancient chapel of the Jesuit college, with a facade flanked by two towers (1624-51). The church of St. Thérèse of Lisieux is modern. The ancient Benedictine abbey church of St. Melanio, 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 there survives a 17th-century wing of the abbey and a gallery of the cloister with arches decorated with angels. The present jardin de Thabor, a public promenade, is part of the ancient abbey garden. The abbey of St. George, founded in 1923 by Duke Alan III and rebuilt by the abbess M. de la Fayette in 1670, was turned into a barracks and then used for municipal services. The abbey of the Most Holy Saviour at Redon was founded ca. 825 by St. Convoin, destroyed in 869, restored in the 10th century, and passed to the Congregation of the Maurists in 1628. It was formerly part of the diocese of Vannes. The 13th-century abbey church has been turned into a parish church; the monastery is occupied by a college of the Eudist Fathers (Cottineau, II, coll. 2422-23). Other sanctuaries are: Notre-Dame-des-Marais at Fougère; Notre-Dame-de-Paimpont, Notre-Dame-de-la-Peinière at St-Didier. R. is a university center; the Faculty of Letters and the Public Library are housed in the ancient Seminary; there is a chair of Celtic languages and the Annales de Bretagne are published there; the Library is rich with over 160,000 volumes, 115 incunabula and 652 manuscripts, many of which are illuminated; among these the cartulary of the abbey of St. Melania, a codex of the Legenda aurea, one of the Roman de la Rose, one of the S. Graal, etc. R. also possesses an archaeological Museum, begun with the collection of the Marquis de Roblen (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, a natural sciences museum and a Musée des beaux-arts with sculptures and paintings of the French, Flemish and Italian schools.
From the diocese of R. come St. Gelduino (d. ca. 1076); the Ven. Robert of Arbrissel, founder of Fontevrault (d. 1117); the Bl. Ralph de la Fontaye who founded ca. 1096 the abbey of St. Sulpice at R.; St. Ivo (1253-1303); the Ven. John of St. Sansons of the Carmelites (d. 1659); the Ven. P. Quiriten O. P., d. 1629; the philologist Tournemine of the Society of Jesus (1661-1739); Jacques Cartier (1494-1552), discoverer of Canada; from St-Malo came R. Chateaubriand (1768-1848).
DOL
In the 6th century St. Samson, bishop, coming from England, founded a monastery at the mouth of the small river Guioult. In 848 Nominoe was crowned there king of the Bretons; the bishop of Dol thereupon became archbishop and primate of Brittany until 1199. 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 at 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. In the facade are traces of the earlier building burned in 1203. The interior has a length of 100 m. with a central nave of seven bays supported by cylindrical pillars formed of four columns, the side aisles are without chapels; that of St. Maglorius on the right was added in the 14th century. In the south transept is the octagonal baptismal font of the 16th century; to the north the tomb of bishop Thomas James (1504); the choir ends with a rectangular ambulatory with side chapels. The 14th-century stained-glass windows contain stories of Abraham, of the infancy and Passion of Our Lord, of St. Samson, of St. Catherine of Alexandria, of St. Margaret; the first six bishops of Rennes, and others of Léon, Tréguier, St-Brieuc, Aleth, Vannes, Quimper and the Last Judgment. On the high altar is a wooden statue of the Blessed Virgin, of the 14th century.
ST. MALO-ALETH
A Gallo-Roman city, "Alethum," at the estuary of the Rance; around the middle of the 6th century the inhabitants proclaimed the monk Malo bishop. But from the 8th century onward the city was repeatedly sacked by Norman incursions 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 King St. Louis in 1236. But at the end of the 13th century its rebirth began with a parish dedicated to St. Servanus, whence the name of the new city, which became a separate municipality in 1780. A wooden statue of Notre-Dame-de-la-Croix-du-Fief is venerated there. Facing the north transept is the chapel of St. Aaron, on the site where the anchorite is said to have lived and been buried. The bishop of Aleth, John of Châtillon, built the Cathedral dedicated to St. Vincent, which today presents a 16th-century facade, with a 15th-century central tower, damaged in 1944. The interior still preserves the original central nave with square pillars and Romanesque capitals, with Gothic side aisles flanked by chapels of the 15th and 16th centuries. Among the bishops are remembered Bl. John de la Grille (1144-63), William of Montfort (1423-32), cardinal from 1426, William Briçonnet (1493-1513), Harlay de Sancy (1632-46).