HE was a native of Placs or Plets, in the diocese of Vannes in Brittany
and had served God with great fervor in a monastery for some years, when
Noon the death of St. Amandus, bishop of Rennes, he was compelled by the
clergy and people to fill that see, though his humility made great
opposition. His virtue was chiefly enhanced by a sincere humility, and a
spirit of continual prayer. The author of his life tells us, that he
raised one that was dead to life, and performed many other miracles.
King Clovis after his conversion held him in great veneration. The
almost entire extirpation of idolatry in the diocese of Rennes was the
fruit of our saint's zeal. He died in a monastery which he had built at
Placs, the place of his nativity, according to Dom Morice, in 490. He
was buried at Rennes, where his feast is kept on the 6th of November. In
the Roman Martyrology he is commemorated on the 6th of January. St.
Gregory, of Tours, mentions a stately church erected over his tomb.
Solomon, sovereign prince of Brittany, in 840, founded a monastery under
his invocation, which still subsists in the suburbs of Rennes, of the
Benedictin order. See the anonymous ancient life of St. Melanius in
Bollandus; also St. Greg. Tour. l. de glor. Conf. c. 55. Argentre, Hist.
de Bretagne. Lobineau, Vies des Saints de Bretagne, p.32 Morice, Hist.
de Bretagne, note 28, p. 932.