Paul-Yves Pezron (20 January 1639, Hennebont, – 9 October 1706, Brie) was a seventeenth-century Cistercian brother from Brittany, best known for his 1703 publication of a study on the common origin of the Bretons and the Welsh, Antiquité de la nation, et de langue des celtes.[1] Pezron was a Doctor of Theology at the Cistercian College of St. Bernard in Paris and abbot of La Charmoie.[2]

In his time, he was known in France as a chronologist. Pezron traced Welsh and Breton origins to the Celts of ancient writers, and traced the Celts further to eponymous hero-patriarchs from Gaul to Galatia. Pezron believed the Welsh language came from a mother tongue called Celtick, a language that was only a theory to other authors. Pezron's fairly unscientific book was popular and reprinted until the early nineteenth century.[3][4]

References

  1. ^ "The Invention of Tradition", Prys Morgan[incomplete short citation]
  2. ^ The Gentleman's Magazine, June, 1841, "The Conventual College of the Bernardins at Paris", p. 592-597
  3. ^ "From a Death to a View : The Hunt for the Welsh Past in the Romantic Period". courses.ed.asu.edu. Archived from the original on 14 December 2005.
  4. ^ Giants in Western Europe
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