sentences:  The place-name element "lan" or "llan", now taken to signify a church, originally signified an enclosure.In all Brythonic Celtic areas, there was a strong association between church enclosures and specific saints, often of a very particular local character.Whatever the persistence of older themes and styles, the parish closes of Brittany took their present form in the early modern period, over a millennium after the region was thoroughly Christianized.