In early Brittany, church organization was not centered on cities and dioceses, since the Roman system of government had not reached so far to the west and north, but on monasteries, populated from the British isles and Ireland.

[12] On 1 September 1050, he wrote to the duke and count of Brittany, informing them that, in accordance with previous papal decisions, all their bishops were subject to the archbishop of Tours, and that in no way could he approve the demand for a separate ecclesiastical province.

[20] Bishop Guillaume Poulart (1359–1374) attended the provincial council of Tours in March 1365, which met at Angers, under the presidency of Archbishop Simon.

[24] In 1516, following the papal loss of the Battle of Marignano, Pope Leo X signed a concordat with King Francis I of France, removing the rights of all French entities which held the right to elect to a benefice, including bishoprics, canonicates, and abbeys, and granting the kings of France the right to nominate candidates to all these benefices, provided they be suitable persons, and subject to confirmation of the nomination by the pope.

He invited Father Vincent de Paul, the co-founder and superior of the Congregation of the Mission to visit his diocese and consider the possibilities in Saint-Malo.

The bishop waS also abbot commendatory of the abbey of Saint-Meen (Mevennius),[26] for which he had obtained the necessary permissions to convert into a seminary from King Louis XIV, and from the reluctant but eventually compliant Benedictines.

De Paul was agreeable, and in 1645 his priests, called colloquially Lazarists, opened the institution, which they staffed down until the abolition of religious orders by the French Revolution in 1791.

[28] One of the first acts of the French Revolution was the abolition of feudalism and its institutions, including estates, provinces, duchies, baillies, and other obsolete organs of government.

On 13 February 1790. it issued a decree which stated that the government would no longer recognize solemn religious vows taken by either men or women.

Members of either sex were free to leave their monasteries or convents if they wished, and could claim an appropriate pension by applying to the local municipal authority.

[29] These decrees applied to the five monasteries of men in the diocese of Saint-Malo: St.-Meen, Montfort, St. Jean des Prés, Beaulieu, and Painpont.

[31] The Assembly ordered the replacement of political subdivisions of the ancien régime with subdeivisions called "departments", to be characterized by a single administrative city in the center of a compact area.

The National Constituent Assembly then, on 6 February 1790, instructed its ecclesiastical committee to prepare a plan for the reorganization of the clergy.

At the end of May, its work was presented as a draft Civil Constitution of the Clergy, which, after vigorous debate, was approved on 12 July 1790.