Sainthood and politics in the Baroque Age : the cult of St. Vincent Ferrer in Brittany, France

Abstract

In this article, the spiritual and secular causes of the renewal of the cult of St Vincent Ferrer are explored. It is argued that Brittany's self-identity as a culturally, legally and politically distinct province within the French kingdom was closely related to the holy actions and favoured places of its special local saints. But as definitions of sainthood and' proofs of sanctity became more rigorous and closely controlled by the Papacy and episcopate in the Counter Reformation, Bretons increasingly turned to international saints rather than Celtic cults, for their protection. As the saints of the wider Church were progressively favoured, so Bretons incorporated new legends and traditions into their own history; the achievements of saints on Breton soil, rather than the Breton origins of saints, became important. Also, the enhanced importance of saints in the early seventeenth century gave them augmented political capital as well. In Brittany, they were called upon to show the duchy's distinctiveness from France and to justify its particular political institutions and legal traditions. However, paradoxically, the international nature of the new devotions favoured closer integration with wider religious and political developments in the French kingdom, for the universalism of these saints linked them to a wider constituency of interests than those of the province alone.