Chapelle Saint-Nicodème in Ploéven: between history and Breton legends

A discovery at the detour of a path

It was a sunny day in April, 17 April 2023. Walking around the countryside around Douarnenez, we almost came across the Chapel Saint-Nicodème. A small valley, trees rustling in the wind, and suddenly, arises this stone sanctuary, humble and majestic at once. The impression of having pushed the door from another time.

A building that crosses the centuries

Edited in 1592, completed in 1607This chapel has already seen more than four centuries of history, storms and forgiveness. The granite and the shale of its walls give it this typical Breton face, both solid and poetic. In 1712, a hurricane dropped its bell tower; In 1987, another storm hurt him again. However, every time, the inhabitants raised it. Evidence that Saint-Nicodemus is more than a building: it is a piece of collective soul.

Three Saints to Protect Rural Life

The chapel is under the sign of three popular saints, each representing a part of peasant life:

• Saint Nicodemus, discreet disciple of Christ, now here livestock keeper.
• Holy Law, boss of the horses, represented holding a horse foot to be ferred – an image that always intrigues visitors.
• Saint Isidore the Labourer, humble Spanish peasant, canonized for his miracles in the fields, and invoked for abundant crops.

To enter the chapel is to find these three figures carved in polychrome wood, silent protectors of a rural world where the animal and the earth were the wealth of a family.

The famous « Forgive cowtails »

The great moment of the year was the Forgive me., called in Breton Pardoun lost ar zaout. On that day, the peasants laid in large wooden chests horse and cow crins, but also butter and black wheat pancakes.

After Mass, a procession went down to the fountain Saint-Nicodème, close to the ferns. The horses drank the holy water, the men prayed, and everyone left reassured for the year.

A heritage that imposes it

In front of the chapel, a ordeal of 1637, signed by sculptor Roland Doré, imposes his silhouette. Christ on the Cross, the Virgin, the saints: a whole scene of faith engraved in the dark stone of the keranton.

Lower Fountain of devotion, dated 1667, still houses its clear source. One can easily imagine the horses drinking there, and the peasants fill a bucket of holy water for their farm.

Inside, the baroque altarpieces of the eighteenth century, gold and polychrome, remind that even in a country chapel, religious art knew how to be sumptuous.

A place of life, not just prayers

Until 1914, the enclosure of the chapel also welcomed a large cattle fair. We came from all over the country of Douarnenez to sell cows, horses and sheep. The crins offered during forgiveness were even sold to artisans in Quimper to make brushes. Faith and commerce were the hands, as often in Brittany.

Why go visit her?

Because she is beautiful in her simplicity, because she breathes deep Brittany, because she tells the close links between spirituality and rural life.

By going through Ploevenstop at Saint-Nicodemus Chapel. Walk in his enclosure, admire his ordeal, look for the fountain. You will leave with this rare feeling of having touched a fragment of still alive history with your finger.

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• Chapelle Saint-Gildas de Pennale