Brioc

Saint Brioc (Brieuc) was a Welsh monk, founder of monasteries in Brittany, where he lived around the year 500. He is one of the seven founding saints of Brittany and is commemorated on 1 May.

Little is known of his early life, since his ninth-⁠century Acta are not altogether reliable. The sources have him come from Ceredigion, where the church at Llandyfriog was first dedicated to him (other lists say Dyfed). He was educated in Ireland, then studied under Saint Germain of Paris. He is believed to have spent some time at Rothesay on the Isle of Bute in Scotland. He then crossed to Armorica and founded a monastery at Landebaeron, and in Upper Brittany he built an oratory at Saint-⁠Brieuc-⁠des-⁠Vaux, where he became abbot. His two monasteries lie one near Tréguier and one in present-⁠day Saint-⁠Brieuc. He is also venerated in Cornwall.

The year of his repose differs between sources: the calendar gives 502, while others say late in the sixth century. He died in his own monastery and was buried in the church there, dedicated to Saint Stephen. His Acta tell many miracles, above all the cure of Count Riguel, who gave him his own palace of Champ-⁠du-⁠Rouvre with all its estates. His relics were moved in 865 to the church of Saints Sergius and Bacchus in Angers, and again, more solemnly, on 31 July 1166. In 1210 a part of them was returned to the cathedral of Saint-⁠Brieuc, where his ring is also kept.