Saint-Pol-de-Léon

Saint-Pol-de-Léon stands near the northern coast of Brittany, its cathedral rising above a town long shaped by its bishopric. The church is associated with Saint Pol Aurélien, and the canons and clergy who gathered around it made the town an ecclesiastical centre for Léon. In the sixteenth century some churchmen held numerous benefices across Brittany; Hamon Barbier, a canon of Léon who died in 1544, combined offices at several religious houses and dioceses. The bishopric remained central to the town until the upheaval of the French Revolution.