SAINT-BRIEUC, DIOCESI di. – City and diocese in the Côtes-du-Nord department of France.
The diocese has the same boundaries as the civil department, with an area of approximately 7,000 sq. km and a population of 509,898, of whom 509,000 are Catholics. The diocese is divided into two archdeaconries, St-B. and Tréguier; it comprises 6 deaneries, which are subdivided into 48 rural deaneries and 412 parishes, served by 956 diocesan priests and 50 religious priests; it has a major and a minor seminary, 16 male and 330 female religious communities (Ann. Pont. 1952, p. 345).
According to tradition, St Brieuc, a monk from Wales, is said to have come in the 5th century from the region of Cardigan to Gaul, together with approximately 80 of his companions, in order to evangelize Armorica. He first founded the monastery of Tréguier on the River Jandy, leaving its direction to his nephew Pabu Tugdual; he then went to the right bank of the Gouet and, at the place called Champ-de-Rouvre, built a basilica around which first a monastery and then a city developed, taking its name from him. Only an inscription placed at St-Serge-d'Angers, where his body is said to have been transferred around 851–57, gives St Brieuc the title of bishop; the first bishop whose name is known before the 11th century is Felix or Garnobius.
The city was decimated by the plague in 1240 and 1601. From 1602 to 1768 it was the seat of the meetings of the Estates of Brittany. It was prey to bloody struggles during the French Revolution. The diocese is suffragan to Rennes and has St Brieuc and St William as its patrons. The bishop has united to his office the title of Tréguier.
The Cathedral, St Stephen’s, was rebuilt in 1220 by Bishop Guglielmo Pinchon, who died in 1234 and was canonized in 1247 by Pope Innocent IV. The building was restored in the 14th century and modified in the 18th century and at the end of the 19th. The façade, with portico, is flanked by two towers; the interior measures 73 m by 41 m in width and 19 m in height; the transept and choir are still from the 15th century. St William Pinchon is buried in a modern granite sarcophagus and is represented in a 15th-century statue; there are also the funerary monuments of the bishops of St-B., Mgr Boisgelin (d. 1633); Mgr Caffarelli (d. 1815); Mgr Le Groing de la Romagère (d. 1841); Mgr Le Mée (d. 1858); Mgr Martial (d. 1863); and Mgr David (d. 1882). Modern are the basilica of Notre-Dame-d'Espérance, greatly venerated in the region and the destination of a pilgrimage each year on 31 May; the church of St Michael dates from the 19th century and has a façade with two corner towers.
The fountain of St-B., because it was erected by him, was rebuilt in 1429; it is attached to the small oratory of Notre-Dame-de-la-Fontaine and to the chapel containing the tombs of the last two bishops of St-B.
Tréguier. – At first it was a monastery at the confluence of the Jandy and the Guindy, founded by St Brieuc and entrusted to Tugdual, whose biography dates from the 9th century. Bishop Gorennano is said to have been driven out of Tréguier by the Normans in the 10th century; he is said to have carried the relics of St Tugdual to Château-Ladon and Chartres.