Word: bretons
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...marketplace of Locronan, a tiny (pop. 1,000) village in Brittany, 5,000 Frenchmen got set for a hike. Most were Bretons or of Breton origin, and many had come from far-off towns and lands; all had waited six years for the day. The occasion: the Tromenie, Brittany's sexennial pilgrimage, whose history, like Locronan's, dates back to the 5th or 6th century...
...Soon Bretons became convinced that this path was the way of penitence; tradition demanded that they follow it in pilgrimage at least once in their lifetime or else be obliged to do so after death, advancing only one coffin-length each year. In the 10th century, Benedictine monks built a monastery just outside the town, and the pilgrimage turned into a "pardon walk" around the monastery's land-hence the word Tromenie, which is Breton for "tour of the refuge...
This year's tour followed the old tradition: to the clatter of cowbells, bagpipes and lusty Breton hymns, the pilgrims marched the ten penitential miles. Bearing crosses and banners, whole families walked together, singing and praying. The young helped the old across improvised bridges and through the sharp stubble of newly sickled wheat. At twelve resting places along the way, prayers were recited in makeshift chapels. That evening Locronan doors stayed open, and big rustic tables were laden with crêpes, bread, butter and cider. Last week the rituals ended with midnight Mass and a pageant re-enacting...
...hopelessly unjust in attributing the name America to Italian Mapmaker and Merchant Amerigo Vespucci (1451-1512). The eponym in truth: a fine English lad named Richard Amerycke. In the Bristol view of history, Amerycke, a customs collector, saw to it that Italian Explorer John Cabot, who discovered Cape Breton Island in 1497 and claimed it for the British crown, received a pension from King Henry VII. A grateful Cabot then named the conquest for his benefactor. Said the Lord Mayor, straight-faced: ''Everyone in Bristol has always known...
...Unknown Named Van Gogh. Bernard's role was never fully appreciated until Art Historian John Rewald told the story last autumn in his authoritative Post-Impressionism: From Van Gogh to Gauguin. In the late 1880s Gauguin was painting in the Breton village of Pont-Aven along impressionist lines. Bernard was a precocious, rebellious, perceptive intellectual. He used to go on painting jaunts outside Paris with another unknown named Vincent van Gogh, who thought well of Bernard's work. Van Gogh urged Bernard to see Gauguin, who had once rebuffed him, and the young painter went to Pont-Aven...