Saint-Malo Cathedral: A Former Roman Catholic Cathedral in France
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.5
- Popularity
- Medium
- Country
- France
- Primary era
- Medieval
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Medieval, Early Modern, Modern
- Civilizations
- Duchy of Brittany, French
- Site type
- Religious
- Remains
- Cathedral
On this page18 sections
History
Saint-Malo Cathedral is a former Roman Catholic cathedral in France, dedicated to Saint Vincent of Saragossa and developed from a medieval monastery into a church combining Romanesque and Gothic architecture. It became the cathedral of Saint-Malo in 1145, when Bishop Jean de la Grille, also known as Jean de Châtillon, secured Pope Eugene III’s approval to transfer the episcopal see from Aleth. The church remains attached to the Archdiocese of Rennes, Dol and Saint-Malo and forms one of the seven cathedral stops on the Tro Breizh, a traditional Breton Catholic pilgrimage linking towns associated with the founding saints of the Breton bishoprics.
From monastery to cathedral
Before Saint-Malo became an episcopal seat, a small monastery dedicated to Saint Malo occupied the site. It depended on Marmoutiers Abbey. After the episcopal transfer in 1145, the monastic church became the cathedral and was initially rebuilt or adapted as a medium-sized Romanesque church. Regular canons served its chapter from a cloister and adjoining claustral buildings on the south side.
The surviving central vessel of the nave and the crossing belong to this twelfth-century phase. Their strongly domed vaults show Angevin influence, while Romanesque capitals preserve varied carvings of foliage, animals, human figures, dragons, fish, and other forms. The tower, begun during the twelfth century, was raised in 1422.
Medieval enlargement
During the thirteenth century, Bishop Geoffroy de Pontual rebuilt the choir in the Gothic style and added a chapter house on the south side. Gothic architecture used pointed arches and ribbed vaults to create more vertically articulated spaces than the massive, rounded forms associated with Romanesque building. The cathedral’s choir reflects Anglo-Norman Gothic influence and was made approximately as long as the nave.
The fifteenth century brought further expansion. The south aisle and three chapels north of the choir were constructed, while the Saint-Julien wing was built between 1461 and 1486. The chapels later became associated with the burials of Jacques Cartier, who died in 1557, and René Duguay-Trouin, whose remains were transferred from Paris to Saint-Malo in 1973.
Early modern rebuilding
Between 1583 and 1607, Thomas Poussin built the north aisle, enlarged the north transept, and constructed the tower stair turret. He also designed and built the Saint-Côme wing on the north facade during the same period. Jean Potier extended the south transept between 1623 and 1630.
The interior was altered in 1676, when the floors of the sanctuary, ambulatory, and choir were raised to the level of the nave. In 1695, English-Dutch naval bombardment destroyed the rose window of the chevet, the eastern end of the choir. Three semicircular openings replaced it. The Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament was added on the south side in 1718, and the bell tower was later raised and capped with a slate-covered dome.
Revolution, facade, and nineteenth-century spire
The Bishopric of Saint-Malo was abolished in 1790 during the French Revolution through the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, which reorganized the structure and administration of the Catholic Church in France. Its territory was divided among the dioceses of Rennes, Saint-Brieuc, and Vannes. The 1801 Concordat confirmed the end of the former bishopric.
Robert Véron rebuilt the facade in 1772–73 in the Neoclassical style, applying the new work over medieval masonry. In 1851, architect Léonce Reynaud added a Renaissance-style doorway to the right of the main portal. Seven years later, Abbé Jean-François Huchet persuaded Napoleon III to support replacing the slate dome with a large openwork Breton-style spire of Caen stone. Built by Leroyer to designs by Frangeul père et fils, the spire was completed with a crowning cross in 1860.
War damage and reconstruction
During the fighting in Saint-Malo in August 1944, German and American bombing and artillery fire severely damaged the cathedral. A German warship shelled the spire because it was thought to serve as a landmark for American forces. The spire collapsed onto the Sacred Heart Chapel, and the original 1893 romantic-style organ by Louis Debierre was destroyed.
Reconstruction began in 1944 under chief architect Raymond Cornon and continued under Pierre Prunet from 1966. The damage to the nave required funds that had originally been intended for the spire, so further fundraising was undertaken, including campaigns reaching Canada. After twenty-eight years of work, the restored cathedral was formally celebrated as reborn in 1972 in ceremonies attended by bishops and the Canadian ambassador. Prunet’s replacement spire retained the original height but used a more restrained design inspired by Saint-Pierre Church in Périers. A new crowning cross was installed in 1987.
The cathedral has been protected as a French historic monument since 1910 and is also described as a national monument of France. Its musical and liturgical furnishings continued to develop after the reconstruction. The Koenig firm built the Great Organ in 1977, and it was inaugurated in 1980. A smaller positive organ had been acquired in 1986, while a new Koenig choir organ was added in 2014. The present five-bell peal was renewed or enlarged in stages, with four bells baptized on 28 July 2019 and the complete peal inaugurated on 9 November 2019.
Remains
Saint-Malo Cathedral follows a Latin-cross plan, with a long nave crossed by a shorter transept. The nave has three bays, the choir has four, and the choir is approximately the same length as the nave. The church occupies a restricted position on a slope within Saint-Malo’s walls and among dense urban buildings. This setting limited the room available for the Gothic choir and produced differences in level between the old nave, the high choir, and the ambulatory, a passage curving around or behind the choir.
Romanesque and Gothic core
Nave and crossing
The central vessel of the nave and the transept crossing preserve the twelfth-century cathedral. Their strongly domed vaults reflect Angevin influence, while attached ribs are principally decorative and rest against rubble masonry. Romanesque capitals survive in both the nave and transept. Their comparatively rough and varied carving includes baskets, caryatids, human heads, a monk parting foliage, fish, a siren, winged dragons, rearing animals, layered leaves with pearl ornament, and stems ending in half fleurs-de-lis or three-lobed fleurets.
Choir and south side
The mid-thirteenth-century choir is a Gothic structure with Anglo-Norman influence and a flat chevet. Its large rose window, destroyed in the seventeenth century, was reconstructed after 1944. Pointed Gothic vaults cover the choir and south aisle, while the north aisle has groin vaulting. The fifteenth-century Saint-Julien wing on the south side contains a recessed wall tomb, or enfeu, with the burial of Olivier Troussier from 1475. The sculpted arms of Bishop Jean Lespervier are also preserved there.
The three chapels north of the choir contain the tomb of Jacques Cartier and the tomb of René Duguay-Trouin. A twelfth-century stone sarcophagus above the ambulatory contains the relics of Jean de la Grille. The cathedral also preserves thirteenth- and fifteenth-century gisants, recumbent funerary sculptures showing the deceased lying in repose.
Transepts, chapels, and entrances
North side
The Saint-Côme wing on the north facade was designed and built by Thomas Poussin between 1593 and 1607. It contains the Porte de Velours, an entrance added in 1851. The north transept was enlarged between 1583 and 1607, while its west side contains the Fontaine Saint-Jean, also known as the Fontaine Saint-Côme. The fountain was restored in 1719.
South side
The south transept was extended between 1623 and 1630, and the transept arms contain four windows. The Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament on the south side has modern ceiling paneling and contains three white-marble statues made in 1743 by the Genoese sculptor Francesco Maria Schiaffino. They represent Saint Benedict, Saint Maur, and an allegory of Faith, and came from a chapel of the neighboring Benedictine convent.
The south-transept chapel has contained a monumental painting by Augustin Frison-Roche since August 2020. Inspired by the Apocalypse, the painting is centered on peace. The chapel also forms part of the cathedral’s later artistic furnishings, which combine historic fabric with works created after the wartime destruction.
Glass, furnishings, and memorials
Postwar stained glass replaced windows destroyed in 1944. Max Ingrand created many of the nave windows, including the 1954 windows of the Blessed Sacrament Chapel, which concern the Eucharist, and the 1956 west-facade windows showing musical angels. Other windows concern Saint Malo, Saint Aaron, and Jacques Cartier. Additional nave scenes show Saint Malo’s arrival at Aaron’s hermitage around 560, the martyrdom of Saint Vincent of Saragossa in 304, the foundation of the See of Saint-Malo, the Tro Breizh pilgrimage, and the Assumption of the Virgin.
After Ingrand’s death in 1969, Michel Durand and Jean Gourmelin made the 1971 north-aisle windows concerning Saint Vincent, Jean de la Grille, and the Tro Breizh. A 1970 window depicts Breton saints including Paul Aurélien, Tugdual, Corentin, Malo, Guillaume, Samson, and Patern. Jean Le Moal and glassmaker Bernard Allain designed the transept and choir windows in an abstract, non-figurative style. Their wall of light includes the choir rose window, whose colors change with daylight and appear especially blue at night. Raymond Cornon designed its replacement in 1968 as part of the postwar restoration.
The nave contains an eighteenth-century wooden pulpit and eighteenth-century choir stalls. The pulpit survived the 1944 bombardment. A Romanesque baptismal font from the twelfth century stands beneath a nineteenth-century baldachin. The fifteenth-century marble statue of Notre-Dame de la Grand’Porte, also called the Miraculous Protectress of the Malouin City, was moved inside the cathedral in 2005 after being removed from a niche above a city gate. A copy occupies the original niche, and another Virgin and Child statue stands in the south aisle.
A floor mosaic commemorates Jacques Cartier’s kneeling in the cathedral before departing for Canada on 16 May 1535. A plaque marks the place where he received the bishop’s blessing. A reliquary containing Cartier’s skull is kept in a chapel beside the ambulatory. His original grave was discovered during excavations in 1949 and moved to its present location. At the foot of the chevet, a reliquary chest contains relics associated with the martyr Saint Célestin. Pope Pius VII gave the chest to Monseigneur Courtois de Pressigny, the last bishop of Saint-Malo.
Organs and bells
Organs
The Koenig Great Organ has four keyboards, a pedalboard, and 35 stops. Its transmission is mechanical, and its keyboards are set in windows. The 2014 Koenig choir organ has two consoles, one fixed in the lower choir for liturgical accompaniment and another mobile console for use with an orchestra and concerts. The small positive organ in the Blessed Sacrament Chapel is a four-stop mechanical chest organ. The earlier postwar Cavaillé-Coll choir organ was sold to the parish of Tinténiac in 1981.
Bells
The present peal consists of five swinging bells. Malo, a 3,605-kilogram B-flat bell, Jacques Cartier, a 2,163-kilogram C bell, Jean de la Grille, a 1,488-kilogram E-flat bell, and Notre-Dame de la Grand’Porte, a 1,125-kilogram F bell, were cast in 2019. Noguette, a 1,784-kilogram D bell, was cast in 1989. Noguette continues the tradition of sounding the former curfew each evening at 10:00 p.m., a practice associated with the sixteenth century.
Later liturgical furnishings
The liturgical choir furnishings commissioned in 1991 from Arcabas and his son include a high altar of bronze and African black marble, a cathedra, and baptismal fonts. The altar represents the four living creatures of the tetramorph, a Christian symbol associating a man with Matthew, a lion with Mark, an ox with Luke, and an eagle with John. The associated furnishings include a lectern, an armchair, two stools, a carved holy-water stoup, and a candlestick.
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