The pardons of Brittany, Saint Anne and the fountains

The word and the thing

The word does not denote a festival; it denotes a remission of penalty. At the end of the Middle Ages, the Church granted indulgences to those who came to pray, on a set day, in a particular church: the pardon is first of all that remission, and the day on which it was obtained ended up taking the name of what people came there to seek. In Brittany, the practice became attached to the feast day of the local saint and multiplied in the 15th century, at the same time as the chapels. The core has never varied: a mass and a procession outside. The order of march is regulated like a coat of arms. At the head, the processional cross; behind it, the banner of the chapel's saint; then the crosses and banners of the neighbouring parishes, which have come to “pay a visit” and whose visit will have to be returned; finally the relics, carried at shoulder height, surrounded by the clergy. The crowd follows, singing, in Breton, in Latin, sometimes in French.