Abbaye Saint-Guénolé de Landévennec

Landévennec

Founded at the turn of the 5th and 6th centuries by Saint Guénolé, a monk who came from the neighbouring island of Tibidy with eleven companions, this is the oldest attested monastic foundation in the whole of Brittany — the historian Arthur de La Borderie called it the "heart of Brittany". Twenty-five years of archaeological excavations (1978–2002) brought to light the foundations of the primitive church, the tomb of the founding saint and the remains of a complete early medieval monastery, unique in Europe for that period. Its first monks followed the "rule of the Scots", that is, the usages of insular Celtic Christianity inherited from the British Isles — a monastic tradition distinct from the Benedictine Rule, which the abbey adopted only in 818, at the request of the emperor Louis the Pious, who had come to campaign in Brittany. Destroyed by the Norman invasions and rebuilt several times, it was abandoned at the Revolution before a new community settled there again in 1958.

Getting there : Admission charge for the museum, exterior free

Opening times and access details are given as a guide only: check before you set out.

Ambient sound