cycle in a chapel off the south aisle depicts Christ in Majesty surrounded by angels and
personifications of the Virtues and Vices.
The façade dates from the mid-19th century, as do the west tower and most of the bell
tower over the crossing.
Nina Rowe
Blanc, Alphonse. Brioude et sa région. Brioude: Tissandier, 1944.
Jalenques, Joseph. “La basilique Saint-Julien de Brioude.” Almanach de Brioude et de son
arrondissement 38(1958):13–26.
Lefèvre-Pontalis, Eugène. “Les dates de Saint-Julien de Brioude.” Congrès archéologique (Le Puy)
71(1904):542–55.
Quarré, Pierre. “Saint-Julien de Brioude et l’art roman auvergnat.” Almanach de Brioude et de son
arrondissement 49(1960): 59–72.
BRITTANY
. Culturally and politically, Brittany has always been one of the most distinctive regions
of France. From prehistoric times onward, maritime trade and migration routes along the
Atlantic coasts of Europe were as important as landward links with central-northern
France: throughout the Middle Ages, Brittany was open to influence and pressure from
both the British Isles and from France. The union of the Breton duchy with the French
crown in 1532 confirmed the predominance of French political and cultural influences
and ended a millennium of intermittent conflict between the two.
The Roman name for the region was Armorica. Profound but poorly documented
changes during and after the collapse of Roman rule in Gaul transformed Armorica into
Britannia Minor, Brittany, a name first encountered in Gregory of Tours. Migration from
the British Isles brought settlers into the three western civitates (Osismiorum, capital
Carhaix, later Brest; Curiosolitarum, capital Corseul then Alet; Venetum, capital
Vannes), areas already affected by economic recession, administrative and military
reorganization, and coastal raiding. In these civitates, medieval administrative geography
only partly respected Roman antecedents. The immigrants’ contribution to the culture
here is most evident in language and place-names. Philologists disagree about the
respective contributions of imported Brittonic and indigenous Gaulish to the Breton
language, but the predominance of places with names in plou-, lan-, and tre- points to
close affinities with Cornwall and Wales, where these place-name elements are also
widespread. Their distribution, together with later formations in loc- and ker-, is, roughly,
west of the rivers Couësnon and Vilaine and in the Guérande peninsula. Also
characteristic of the Breton-speaking region is the plethora of obscure local saints
represented in church dedications, many of which recur in Wales and Cornwall.
There is scant archaeological or documentary evidence for the Merovingian period; it
is known that the Bretons were divided into several principalities with hereditary ruling
families. Merovingian sources comment on Breton raiding into the Frankish-controlled
counties of Nantes and Rennes. Later Breton hagiographical traditions are unanimous in
portraying early Breton churches as monastic communities founded by aristocratic or
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