| Duchy of Brittany Dukelezh Vreizh Duché de Bretagne |
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| Motto Kentoc'h mervel eget bezañ saotret Potius mori quam fœdari (Latin) Plutôt la mort que la souillure A ma vie (variant) |
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| Capital | None Nantes (de facto) Rennes (de facto) Vannes (de facto) |
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| Language(s) | Breton, French, Gallo | ||||
| Government | Duchy | ||||
| Legislature | Estates of Brittany | ||||
| History | |||||
| - Battle of Trans-la-Forêt | 1 August 936 | ||||
| - Union with France | 13 August 1547 | ||||
| Currency | double denier | ||||
The Duchy of Brittany (Breton: Dugelezh Breizh, French: Duché de Bretagne) was a medieval tribal and feudal state covering the northwestern peninsula of Europe,bordered by the Alantic Ocean on the west and the English Channel to the north, and less definitively by the Loire River to the south and Normandy and other French provinces to the east.
The Duchy of Brittany was preceded by a number of early Kingdoms and can trace its formal origins to the expulsion of Viking occupiers in 937. The Duchy was merged into the the Kingdom of France as a province by 1532, and was eliminated by 1792 during the formation of the French system of Departements dyuring the French Revolution.
The geographic territory of the Duchy of Brittany corresponds largely to the Armorica of ancient times as it was known to the Romans, and the Brittany (Bretagne) region of France in modern times. The Ducal territories were often marked by its major cities and monasteries including the area west of Mont-Saint-Michel (inclusive) and north of Nantes/Naoned (inclusive), and the areas circumscribing Rennes/Roazhon and Vannes/Gwened. The Duchy lost control of Mont Saint Michel to Normandy during border wars with that French vassal province; and in modern France, Nantes has been separated from the other four Breton departments that make up modern Brittany. In modern geoplotical terms, the Duchy of Brittany covered roughly the territory now composed of the French Departements of Finistere, Côtes-d'Armor, Morbihan, Ile-et-Vilaine and at least the Nantes area within Loire-Atlantique.
A principal characteristic of the Duchy and its Dukes, ranging in time across nearly 2,000 years to the present, and which shaped its history was, and is, a fierce preference for independence. This tradition of independence includes a distinctive Celtic culture and its own celtic language, the Breton language, which is experiencing a modern resurgence. The preference for indepedendent rule was challenged from the outside and throughout the history of the Duchy. At various times the earliest Breton rulers acknowledged, supported, and were united with the High Kings of the Britons, including the legendary Arthur. The early Breton rulers fell under the suzereignity of Continental Emperors including the Roman Emperors and, later, the Carolingian Emperors from Charlemagne to Clothar II. The Duchy existed through a long period of tenacious defense of its independence which included wars against the Vikings and a civil war, and various relations with the English and the French crown. Independence was lost to France in the early 1500s when the Duchesse Anne married the King of France, and the Duchy was merged into the French crown; modern Brittany remains a part of France, but has been split into five departements only four of which are recognized as Breton by the French Republic.
The Duchy's culture was, and remains, celtic. In modern times the resurgent Breton language is the leading indicator used to list modern Brittany as a Celtic Nation. Its rulers and people were part of a larger, but fragmented, celtic region that aligned celtic Brittany to the celtic Duchies of Cornwall and Wales in the British Isles, and Christian Bishopric of Galicia in Spain.
Spanish Galicia is unlike these other celtic regions because it never completed its evolution into a separate Ducal state. In cotrast to Galician, regions within the Duchy of Brittany were originally settled by missionaries from Wales, Ireland and Cornwall, the Seven Founder Saints of Brittany and then successfully evolved into the Duchy. The early Christian settlers assured that the region would not only be Celtic, but retain cultural ties to the other Celtic nations. These settlements evolved into Bishoprics that in turn participated in the unification of the early Breton Kingdoms into what became the Duchy of Brittany.
The Duchy's history also reflects its ties to the gaelo-celtic peoples of Ireland and its links to gaelo-celtic Scotland, principally through the Breton-Scottish ruling House of Stewart. For example, an early Queen of Brittany, Darerca, was the sister of St Patrick and is known more as the mother of nearly 20 Irish saints than for her role as a Breton Queen Consort. The Scottish House of Stewart's ancestral founder was a Breton Knight who emigrated to Scotland from the Mont St-Michel region of Brittany (before it was taken over by Normandy]].
The Duchy reflected founding influences from the English region of Devon, or Devonshire, when it was still largely celtic and known as the Kingdom of Dunmonia as contrasted with the Breton Kingdom of Domnonee. The links between Dumnonia and Dumnonee nearly vanished after Anglo-Saxon invaders gained control of England.
The early tribal structure retained many aspects of the pagan and Druidic cultures that preceded the Roman Occupation of Armorica. The evolution of the Christian Churches of the Celtic Nations and Briton figured prominently in the Duchy's history. The Duchy's religious culture was, and remains, Roman Catholic.
The Seven Founder Saints of Brittany established a system of Breton monasteries that supported the development of the major Breton cities, and their nobles. The emergence of the Kingdom of Brittany coincided with the steady adoption of Christianity by the Breton leaders and their peoples. The early Kings of Brittany attempted to impose a domestic Breton Church structure centered around the Ancient Archbishop of Dol. After the early Breton monastic period, the Roman Catholic Pope exercised his authority over the Breton bishops and their churches from outside of the Duchy and through the Metropolitan of Tours. Later attempts by the Dukes of Brittany to have the Archbishop of Dol serve as the Breton Metropolitan or Patriarch failed.
Overall the Dukes' interactions with the Holy Roman Catholic Church weakened the Duchy's autonomy. The Pope intervened to annul the Duchess Anne's first marriage and acknowledge her marriage to the King of France, and with these actions the independence of the Duchy would cease. The Duchy was eventually merger into the "most Christian" French Crown.
The Ducal rulers of Brittany were preceded by various Breton Chieftains and Nobles of the immediate post-Roman era. The eventual emergence of the Duchy as a fiercely indepedent state is owed to the efforts of these early Breton leaders to free the region from outside rule, and sometime from occupation by outside armies.
The Duchy's earliest origins can be traced to the settlement of its northern regions along the English Channel by tribes that emigrated from the British Isles, starting presumably during the time of earliest Trojan settlement of the British Isles. Later, during the Roman occupation of Britain, the Roman Empire established a government center in what is modern day Carhaix in central Brittany. Migration from Cornwall and Devonshire occurred across many centuries and the Cornish emigration to Brittany accelerated with the advance of Anglo-Saxons invading the British Isles (for related folklore, see "Brittany during the Arthurian period" below. Early Christian missionaries including the seven founder saints of Brittany appear to have come principally from Wales and Cornwall around the 6th Century. There were frequent interactions with Ireland; and the royal Scottish House of Stuart claims its origins from a Breton Banneret knight from the region of Mont St. Michel.
The emergence of royal rulers throughout Britain, and Brittany, coincided with the withdrawal of direct Roman rule from the region. The history of the earliest Breton rulers and the rise of a separate Breton Duchy are tied to the early history of the Duchy of Cornwall, and later the early history of Great Britain after the Norman Conquest.
Brittany,Cornwall, and Wales (where other celtic peoples settled and also fled to safety during this period) share many cultural attributes including the shared religious tradition of patron saints; the Breton, Welsh and Cornish languages share many similarities. A fourth celtic region, Britonia within Spanish Galicia was settled by Britonic settlers during the 5th and 6th centuries much in the manner of Brittany; this settlement's leader was a Bishop named Mailoc, or Maglacos.
While the history of Brittany is rich with a series of land based military and "blue water" based martime battles, the history of the Dukes of Brittany is most closely associated with land battles, and wars fought over the geographic boundaries of the Duchy.
The Ducal title of Brittany is sovereign and independent from other kingly realms although it had vassalage relationships at various times with the crowns of France and England (in this period it was not uncommon for European Kings to have a vassalage relation with another King). Once established, parts or all of the Duchy of Brittany was occupied at various times by Viking invaders, England, the autonomous pre-Conquest Dukes of Normandy, France,and Spain. The Duchy was an object of contention in the Spanish rivalries with France, the French rivalry with England, the conquest of England by Normandy, and a series of Viking invasions.
The Dukes of Brittany were sovereign rulers before the title was joined to the crown of France and frequently acted to defend their independence and autonomy. Ducal Brittany was eventually merged into the crown of France through the marriage of the Duchess Anne of Brittany to the French King. In the earliest days of organized royal rule over regions such as Brittany the title of King was sometimes bestowed as a description used to chronicle the visit of the ruler to another regional sovereign, such as the Holy Roman Emperor or the Breton ruler was not required to adopt a posture of homage to that Imperial ruler, as was the case during the reign of Charlemagne. The subsequent disappearance of the title King and the emergence of the title Duke is not meant to indicate a sovereign subservience to any other crown. (see also "The effect of Medieval Customs and Laws on the Duchy of Brittany" below.)
The development of the Duchy is linked to the Breton region's ancient tribes, their cities and the regions they dominated which became the major cities and regions within the Duchy. The Breton people were organized in tribes including the Osismii, the Veneti, the Redones, the Coriosolites, and the Namnetes, among others. The cities associated with these tribes were Carhaix, Vannes, Rennes, St. Malo, and Nantes, respectively, each of which served at various times as the capital of the Duchy. These tribes and their cities eventually produced the modern French departments of the Breton peninsula, the Finistère, Morbihan, Ile-et-Vilaine, and the Cotes-d'Armor; in the modern departmental system Nantes is held outside Brittany in the department of Loire Atlantique. Each tribe was led by a Chieftain, and sometimes a Warlord. These early Breton leaders' power and importance rose over time and their positions preceded those of the earliest Breton Counts and Viscounts.
The most notable of these early Breton Counts were the Count of Vannes, Count of Nantes and the Count of Rennes. In the future, these Counts at various times served the Breton Duke and even served as Regent during the Breton Duke's minority. At other times these Coutns represented an outside force that was sometimes hostile to the Duchy of Brittany. This was particularly the case of the Count of Nantes who at one point led the Breton March, at one time was a disposed heir to the Ducal Crown, and at one time was Henry II of England. The Counts sometimes rose to become Duke themselves. This was particularly the case of the Count of Vannes when Brittany was considered a Kingdom, and the House of Rennes which was eventually subsumed into the Ducal Crown (thus in this period, the Duke of Brittany was automatically the Count of Rennes).
The Brythonic region included the British Isles and Brittany. There were some individuals who may have established hegemony over all Brythonic populations in the whole area, notably Riothamus, who is described as King of the Britons by the chronicler Jordanes. However there are no clear rulers of Brittany as a whole, regardless of title, until the rule of the legendary Conan Meriadoc. Even before Conan Meriadoc, Brittany was divided into tribal areas centered around the large Breton Cities, some of which were also fiefdoms ruled by local Counts. The Armorican peninsula at various stages in this early period came under control of the High King of the Britons or a continental Emperor.
One of the earliest kingdoms on the Armorican or Breton Peninsula was that of the Vannetais, although they ruled a smaller area than the future Duchy of Brittany; the early Vannetais kingdom later became the fiefdom of the Count of Vannes. The entire Armorican peninsula and the Vannetais fell under Frankish suzerainty during the time of Clovis I.
Vannetais was split to create Cornouaille and Domnonée. An eastern region of the peninsula abuting modern day Normandy constituted a third kingdom named Bro Erech (or Broërec); this kingdom had been established by Welsh settlers. The emergence of the Duchy of Brittany resulted from ascendance of the Princes of Domnonee and the unification of these three kingdoms.
The region of Domnonée should not be mistaken for the British region of Dumnonia which is similar to Devonshire, or modern Devon. The rulers of Domnonée held the title if Prince and some became Kings of Brittany. The rulers of Domnonée emerged later as the Breton House of Penthievre which sought, but failed, to establish itself as the Duke of Brittany. A similar history exists between the Kingdom of Cornwall and the Breton region of Cornouaille in southwestern Brittany. These historical links also appeared in the region of Anjou which contains an area named Cornuaille. The region around the Breton city of Vannes known as the "Gwened" in south Brittany (named after its iron-age inhabitants, the Veneti, or the "Weneted") also bears this relation with the Welsh area "Gwynedd."
Another factor in the development of the Duchy's early regions was the establishment of monasteries and Bishoprics by the early Christian Churches. Mont Saint-Michel was such an early monastery and its history figures prominently in the setting of the eastern border of the Duchy. The regions of Brittany and their future counts owed much to the way in which the seven founder saints of Brittany established their monasteries and took on the role of Bishop. The Archbishop of Dol was the senior ranking Christian cleric in Brittany.
The Duchy's development was also effected by its interaction with the neighboding regions of Anjou, Poitou, Seine-et-Marne and, most notably, Normandy. The first three bordering regions of France did not remain permanent members of Brittany but evolved the same way. The development of Normandy followed a different path under Viking invaders led by Rollo. The Viking invaders figured decisively in the creation of the Duchy with the eventual defeat of the Vikings by the Bretons marking one of the more formal, and historically accepted, starts to the Duchy. The nature of the Breton victory over the Vikings, which depended on England as a military ally played into the relations of the Breton Duchy with, and the important Breton theme of autonomy and independence from, King Edward the Elder of England and his grandson, King Louis IV of France and the future Dukes of Normandy.
As the Roman Empire withdrew from Britain and Brittany, and as the Anglo-Saxons moved westward through the British Isles from East Anglia, the emigration of Celtic people to Brittany increased and the Duchy emerged in its own right. The folkloric wars between the Anglo-Saxons and the legendary High King Arthur (King of the Britons) also figured prominently in the folkloric version of the establishment of the Breton Duchy.
(See the List of rulers of Brittany for the various Kings, Princes and Dukes of the Kingdom,and later, the Duchy of Brittany.)
The Duchy of Brittany began to emerge upon the death of the Roman Emperor Gratian during an uprising from the western Frankish regions of the Roman Empire. The general who led the rebellion was Magnus Maximus who is thought to be the legendary Breton leader Conan Meriadoc. The general becomes the usurping Western Roman Emperor.
It is at this time in the 4th century that the legendary leader Cynan, or Conan Meriadoc, is credited with founding Brittany and in these written legends holds the title King of Brittany. He is not the only Breton leader to lay claim to be the first King of Brittany (see Morman below). Conan, or Cynan, established a kingdom in which the towns of Nantes and Vannes dominated over what had been the central Breton region ruled by the Romans from Carhaix, which was known to the Romans as Vorgium. His wife was Darerca of Ireland, the sainted sister of St. Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland.
After Conan Meriadoc's time, the accepted history of the Duchy of Brittany becomes intertwined with the legendary rule of High King Arthur of the Britons. The Breton Budic II of Brittany marries Arthur's sister, and for a time flees Brittany to live in exile with the King of Dyfed. The history of Brittany provides some evidence of Arthur's actual existence and rule: in addition to the description of Budic II, there are at least two interactions between Arthur and the seven founder saints of Brittany; there are also the histories of Arthur's battles around the Breton city of Carhaix, in defense of the Leodegrance, descriptions of Arthur's wife Guinevere as Queen of Brittany, the Breton King Hoel's role as a Knight of the Round Table. among other forms of evidence (see below).
The future history of Ducal Brittany is one of how much land the Duchy encompasses, how the land is acquired or lost, the degree to which the Ducal lands are united under one ruler, and the contest between the ruling nobles of the major Breton cities Rennes, Nantes, and Vannes to rule the entire Ducal territory. In this history the relation of the Breton ruler to the Kings of England and France sometimes figure decisively, as does their ability to repel invaders such as the Vikings. Throughout the history the themes of independence and autonomy from other realms are repeated.
In the 6th century, the semi-folkloric Conomor ruled as a local King and tried to extend his rule overall all of Armorica. He claimed overall leadership as representative of the Frankish empire, but was ousted when abandoned by Chlothar I. The rejection of Conomor and Clothar establishes the Breton precedent of autonomy. In this century, Waroch ruled the Vannetais kingdom and gave his name to the future duchy's third and smallest subdivision Broweroch. His rule was important to the tradition of Ducal Brittany in asserting and maintaining its independence from outside rulers. Waroch fought two major wars against Clothar II and Chilperic I which he lost but maintained the region's independent spirit in the process. Waroch was succeeded by Judicael ap Hoel who was King of Domnonee. His rule is notable in that he becomes High King of the Bretons and begins to reunite Cornouaille, Domnonee and Broweroch.
From this period Brittany clung to its independence and autonomy whether ruled by a King or a sovereign Duke, or whether the province was administered by a provincial governor imposed by another monarch. Over time, Ducal Brittany's principal relations with other kingdoms was with England or France although the Duchy and its armies figured prominently in the Norman Conquest of England in 1066 under William I Duke of Normandy. During an early period the Duke of Brittany was also the English Duke of Richmond. Later when Brittany lost its independence on becoming part of the Kingdom of France it retained some elements of its autonomy and traditions. The modern politics of Brittany continue to reflect this preference for autonomy.
The Breton region's major cities were associated with the various Dukes that emerged to rule Brittany until it was merged into the Kingdom of France. Thus at various times the holder of the title Duke of Brittany attained the title after first being the Duke of Nantes, Rennes, or Vannes. While Carhaix was a capital city occupied by the Romans its influence declined during the time of the Duchy, and the towns of Nantes, Rennes and Vannes also served as the Breton capital at various times. In later periods the title Duke of Brittany was often associated with the principal heir to the King of France.
The attempted incorporation of Brittany into the Carolingian empire ensured that its political and social institutions were similar to those prevailing elsewhere in western Francia. In some histories the region of Brittany is shown outside of the direct rule of Charlemagne. The sequence of rebellions by Breton Chieftains after Charlemagne's death contributed to the setting of the territorial boundaries of the Duchy.
In Charlemagne's system regions called Counties (Comites) were ruled by Counts. Charlemagne appointed Guy of Nantes as Count of Nantes in an effort to control Brittany. While Guy of Nantes presented the battle standards of various Breton warlords to Charlemagne in Aachen with the claim that the whole of Brittany was subject to the Emperor, this was not the case, and Breton warlords continued their fight for independence.
After the death of Charlemagne in 814, the Breton chieftain Morman rebelled against further Frankish domination and was named King by his fellow Breton chieftains. In some histories he is identified as the first Breton King as a way to honor the independence he gained from outside rule. Louis the Pious sought to pacify the region and re-establish the Frankish overlordship.
Morman was followed by the Breton Chieftain Wihomarc. Wihomarc (or Wiomarc'h) (French: Guyomard) (d. 825) was a Breton chieftain "who seemed to have greater authority than the other Breton leaders"[1]. He revolted against Frankish overlordship in 822 and held on to his power until his death. His rebellion may have been incited by the creation of a Frankish county in Poutrocoet (Poher) sometime between 818 and 820.[2] Wihomarc's rule is notable because he mounted the first rebellion in Brittany against outside rule since Louis the Pious pacified the region after the usurpation of Morman in 818. Wihomarc was succeeded by Nominoe, the first Breton overlord to successfully defeat the Franks in war. Nominoe defeated Charles the Bald at the Battle of Ballon in 845.
After the victory of Nominoe's son Erispoe in the Battle of Jengland (851), the territory of Brittany was legally defined to include the towns of Rennes and Nantes, along with the Pays de Retz south of the Loire. This later became the official territory of the Duchy of Brittany. Erispoe was granted an imperial seal by Charles the Bald, and from this royal dignity was considered a king; because of his wars with Charles the Bald, Erispoe was known as rex tyrannicus and at Charles' court was identified as Duke of Brittany. Erispoe continued to pay tribute to Charles the Bald during their peace.
The most notable member of Erispoe's court was Salomon,the Count of Rennes and Nantes, who succeeded him as Salomon, King of Brittany. Salomon continued the peace with Charles the Bald, was granted an imperial seal, paid tribute to Charles and acknowledged his suzereinity. However he rebelled against the notion of the future expected rule of Louis the Stammerer as heir to Charles. Salomon's successful wars to expand Brittany included a grant of Anjou, and it is from this period that the Duke of Anjou can trace his association with Ducal Brittany. Salomon was assassinated in a conspiracy between Pascweten, Gurvand, and Wigo, after which Pascwrten and Gurvand seize power and split Brittany.
It is in the 10th century that the region becomes a more formally recognized Duchy and the title of King of Brittany gives way to the title Duke of Brittany. See the Dukes of Brittany family tree.
Gurvand, Duke of Brittany grants a sizeable portion of Brittany to his co-conspirator Pascweten, but rules with declining legitimacy and himself is quickly assassinated. His son Judicael, by Erispoe's daughter, becomes King. Judicael, Duke of Brittany fights a series of battles that secure the independence of the kingdom from invading Vikings, but dies in battles. He is succeeded by his ally Alan.
Alan I, King of Brittany completes the defense of the dukedom from the invading Vikings, and becomes the first Breton ruler to be officially recognized as King by the Carolingian Emperor. Alan I reunites the Brittany that Gurvand had allowed to be divided, and expands the kingdom of Brittany to attain its largest territorial expanse.
At Alan I's death in 907 Brittany is overrun once again by Vikings. From 907 to 937 Brittany is occupied by Viking Normans. Alan I's son Alan II flees to England where for a time he lives in exile under Edward the Elder. His fellow exile is Louis IV of France, Edward's grandson, whose French kingdom is also overrun by Vikings.
Alan II returns to Brittany in 938 to defeat the Vikings and is elected Alan II, Duke of Brittany. Alan II's other great success was to establish independence from the French kingdom when his friend Louis IV states that Brittany "was never part of his kingdom." Alan II's reign begins the Ducal rule of the House of Nantes. It is from Alan II's election that the title King of Brittany is no longer used and the title of Duke of Brittany replaces it.
Alan II's rule marks the beginning of a period of unique relationships between the independent realms of Brittany, England and France. While Brittany defeats the Vikings, and expels them, France arrives at a peace that grants neighboring Normandy to the Viking ruler, Rollo who becomes a French Duke. Border disputes between Normandy and Brittany dominate their relations for the remainder of this century until a common military goal is agreed under William the Conqueror. Alan II and his successors rule a smaller Ducal state than Alan I and without his authority. Alan II's election as Duke also indicates a form of shared power with other Breton nobles and the Roman Catholic Church and the presence of powerful external forces within the dukedom. Having defeated the Vikings, Alan II and his Ducal heirs face expansionist threats from Normandy, which is ruled by the descendants of the Viking invader, Rollo.
Upon his death Alan II is succeeded by his son Drogo, Duke of Brittany. Drogo's rule is important in demonstrating the relative importance of the major Breton cities and their Counts. Drogo's rule also sets the precedent for the role of a Regent during the minority of a Ducal heir. Drogo is Count of Vannes and Nantes before becoming Duke of Brittany. There are other counts, including the Count of Rennes. Throughout his reign, Drogo was under the shared regency of his uncle the Count of Blois, Theobald I (who entrusted the administration to Wicohen, Archbishop of Dol, and the Count of Rennes, Juhel Berengar) and of his stepfather, the Count of Anjou, Fulk II, who married Alan II's widow. The Duchy continues to experience political instability.
Drogo is succeeded by Juhel Berengar's son Conan I and the Ducal throne passes to the House of Rennes. Conan I and his successor, Geoffrey I bring greater political stability to the Duchy including an alliance with Normandy.
The origins of the Duchy of Brittany lie in the Battle of Trans-la-Forêt, on or about 1 August 939, after which Brittany came to be referred to as a Duchy and its rulers as Dukes. From this time the Duke of Brittany maintained various links to the Kings of France and separately the Kings of England, sometimes serving actively as a vassal of one or the other.
Duke Geoffrey I, a Ducal member of the House of Nantes, entered into a dynastic alliance with Duke Richard II of Normandy in a diplomatic double marriage between the two houses in 1003. The church-sanctioned marriage ceremonies were held at Mont St-Michel on the Breton-Norman border. Geoffrey I married Hawise of Normandy, Richard II's sister; and Richard II married Judith of Brittany, Geoffrey I's sister and Conan I's daughter.[1] However, the death of Geoffrey I in 1008 allowed for Richard II to intervene directly in Brittany during the minority of his nephew, Alan III, against rebellious counts who would take advantage of a youthful duke.[1] The guardianship would be reciprocated later when Alan III was named as one of the primary guardians of William of Normandy. By designating Alan I as a guardian of William, Robert I was "involving a close family member who would not compete with his heir".[1]
In his guardianship of Duke William, Alan III was allied with Count Gilbert and Robert, Archbishop of Normandy, William's uncles.[1] However, when Archbishop Robert died in 1037 instability surfaced. Alan III countered the instability by reinforcing the power of the Norman ducal house; he did this by providing Robert I's two youngest brothers with land and title.[1] However, by October 1, 1040, Alan III was poisoned to death while besieging a rebel castle in Vimoutiers. Tension increased in Normandy following Alan III's death, with Count Gilbert dying shortly thereafter.[1] A rival faction in the guardianship emerged, one that would intervene in Brittany, suppressing Alan III's heir from claiming his inheritance.
At around eight years of age, Conan II succeeded his father Alan III as Duke of Brittany, with the ducal regency entrusted to Alan's brother Odo, Count of Penthièvre.[2] However, by the time Conan reached his majority at age sixteen, around 1048, Odo refused to relinquish his power. During the dynastic conflict between uncle and nephew, Hoel of Cornouaille supported Odo in suppressing Conan's inheritance. Odo was Hoèl's brother-in-law as he was married to Hoel's sister Agnes of Cornouaille. By 1057 Conan captured and imprisoned Odo of Penthièvre, with Conan II coming to terms with Hoèl of Cornouaille later that year.[2]
Conan II faced numerous threats posed by the pro-Norman faction in Brittany, including revolts sponsored by William, Duke of Normandy.[3] William supported challengers to Conan's authority, encouraging them to rebel against the Breton duke, his cousin. William continued courting the family of Odo, who was imprisoned. In response, Conan promoted his own legitimate claim as Duke of Normandy, as the Catholic Church began preferring legitimate heirs born in church-sanctioned marriage over out-of-wedlock issue.[4]
The 1064–1065 War between Brittany and Normandy was sparked after Duke William supported the rebellion against Conan II led by Rivallon I of Dol, the Duke of Dol-Combourg (Dol-Combourg was a ducal archbishopric reporting to the Pope in Rome if not the Metropolitan of Tours).[2] In 1065, Before his invasion of Anglo-Saxon England, William of Normandy warned his rivals in Brittany and Anjou to abstain from any attacks on his duchy, on the grounds that his mission bore the papal banner.[3] However, Conan II rebuffed the warning and declared that he would press any advantage against William.[4]
While William plotted to take the English crown, Conan consolidated his authority in Brittany and planned to take advantage of William's absence and invade Normandy.[4] First, however, he needed to neutralize Anjou, another historic rival. Once Anjou was pacified he would advance into Maine and then into Normandy.[4] However, during his 1066 siege of Angers, Conan was found dead after donning poisoned riding gloves. Duke William was widely suspected of organizing the assassination.[3][4]
Hawise succeeded her brother Conan II as hereditary Duchess of Brittany in 1066, and her marriage that year to Hoèl of Cornouaille was designed to bring stability by consolidating authority in upper and lower Brittany.
With a nominal pro-Norman faction, represented by the duke-consort Hoèl of Cornwall and the count Odo of Penthièvre among others, now in control of Brittany, Duke William of Normandy was able to attract Bretons into his expeditionary army for the upcoming campaign to claim the English crown.[1] Most Breton commanders in Duke William's army were the second-sons of Breton lords, such as Alain Le Roux (son of Eudas of Penthièvre). As much as a third of William's non-Norman soldiers were of Breton extraction.
However, the historic rivalry between Brittany and Normandy resurfaced at the close of the 11th century. By 1075 Hoèl returned to the traditional Breton policy of opposing Norman expansion with an alliance with the young king Philip I of France.[1] Ralph de Gael, in exile in Brittany after the unsuccessful 1075 rebellion in England, led incursions into Normandy from his base in Dol.[1] By 1076 King William of England retaliated by leading an army into Brittany to eject Ralph, but was met with a rare defeat by an allied army of Bretons and French forces.[1] In the peace negotiations which followed William offered Hoèl his second daughter Constance in marriage to the Breton heir Alan, though nothing came of the betrothal at the time.
By 1086 Alan IV was forced to abandon his duchy after an invasion launched by William I of England.
However, a peace settlement was reached that same year and in the negotiations that followed Alan IV was forced into marriage with King William I's second daughter Constance of England.[2] The marriage ceremonies may have taken place in Bayeux in Normandy. William of Malmesbury wrote that Constance was unpopular at the Breton court because of her 'sever and conservative' manner.[2] William of Malmesbury also alleged that Alan VI had Constance poisoned to death, but this remained unverified[2] However, Orderic Vitalis wrote that as duchess Constance did all she could to further the welfare of the Bretons, who grieved deeply at her death in 1090.[2]
In 1092 Alan IV donated property to Redon Abbey by charter, and by 1093 married Ermengarde of Anjou as a political alliance with Fulk IV of Anjou to counter Anglo-Norman influence.[2] With Ermengarde he had a son Geoffrey, who died young, Conan III, and a daughter Hawise (married to count Baldwin VII of Flanders), possibly named after his mother Hawise, Duchess of Brittany.[2]
In 1098 Alan IV joined the First Crusade, leaving Brittany under the regency of his wife Ermengarde of Anjou. Ermengarde ruled from Nantes, rather than Rennes, as it was closer to her home county of Anjou. Alan IV returned from Crusade in 1101.
Conan III inherited Brittany on the abdication of his father Alan IV, who retired to the monastery of Redon in 1112. By 1113 Conan III married Maude, an illegitimate daughter of King Henry I of England. With Maude he had three children, Hoel, Bertha, and Constance. During his reign he strengthened the rule of the duchy.
In the dynastic struggle between Stephen of England, also known as Stephen of Blois, and the dispossessed Empress Matilda, Conan III allied himself with King Stephen. Empress Matilda's unpopular marriage with Geoffrey V of Anjou forced upon her by her father Henry I, reflected the historic rivalry between Brittany, Normandy, and Anjou. Conan III sought to counter Angevin influence and preserve Breton independence. In his alliance with Stephen, Conan III looked for greater influence with Stephen, who needed allies on the continent to out-flank Matilda. Matilda was able to consolidate power in Normandy and Anjou. Brittany's position to the west of the Angevin controlled territory exposed a wide frontier for Stephen to exploit against Matilda.
In 1138 Conan III's daughter Bertha was married to Alan of Penthièvre, a supporter of King Stephen. For his support, Stephan created Conan's son-in-law Alan as 1st Earl of Richmond in the second creation, a title previously held by Alan's uncle Alain Le Roux. Later, when Alan died in 1146, Bertha returned home to Brittany from England. On his death-bed in 1148, Conan III disinherited his son Hoel, Count of Nantes from succession to the duchy.[2] With this surprise move Bertha became his heiress and successor as hereditary Duchess of Brittany.[2] However, Hoel was to retain the county of Nantes.[2]
Duchess Bertha, as dowager countess of Richmond, continued Brittany's alliance with Stephen's England against the Angevins. However this strategy became untenable after 1153, when Stephen's son Eustace died suddenly. Eustace's death provided an opportunity for Matilda's son, Henry FitzEmpress, to land an invasion army in England and press for his mother's claims. In the Treaty of Wallingford, Stephen was forced to recognize Henry FitzEmpress as his heir with Matilda abdicating her claim in her son's favour. The treaty exposed Brittany to retaliatory incursions from Henry FitzEmpress and his brother Geoffery FitzEmpress.
On the death of Bertha in early 1156, her son Conan IV, Duke of Brittany expected to inherit the ducal throne.[2] However, he was denied his inheritance by his stepfather Odo II,Bertha's second husband; Odo II refused to relinquish his authority over Brittany.[2]
To consolidate his hold on power, Odo II entered into a pact with dispossessed Hoel, Count of Nantes, to divide Brittany between them. But Hoel was under threat of rebellion in Nantes, sponsored by Geoffrey Fitzempress, and he could not send any aid to Eudas. Conan IV landed in Brittany and took Rennes, while his ally Raoul de Fougères captured and imprisoned Eudas.[2] Conan IV was formally crowned Duke of Brittany in a ceremony held in Rennes. While Conan IV was consolidating his inheritance in 1156, Geoffrey FitzEmpress successfully took Nantes from Hoel. On Geoffrey's death in 1158 Conan IV seized Nantes, reuniting the Duchy once again. However, Henry II of England, now King of England, seized the Earldom of Richmond, Conan's paternal inheritance. Henry demanded the return of Nantes, and when he obtained control of it from Conan IV, became the Count of Nantes, without obligation to the Duke of Brittany (later Dukes would eventually reunite Nantes to Brittany).
Henry II of England continued to stoke revolts and rebellions in Brittany against Conan IV. In response, Conan IV took the Breton counties of Tréguier and Guingamp from his uncle Count Henri, a supporter of Henry II of England.[2] Richmond was returned to Conan IV later that year in an agreement reached with Henry II of England.[2] By 1160 Conan was forced to yield to Henry. In the peace negotiations which followed Conan was obliged to marry Henry's cousin, Margaret of Scotland, in 1160.[2] Margaret was daughter of Henry of Scotland, 3rd Earl of Huntingdon and Ada de Warenne, a daughter of William de Warenne, 2nd Earl of Surrey and Elizabeth de Vermandois.
It is also in the 12th Century that the romantic notions of Ducal Brittany and its ally Ducal Cornwall are evoked in the romance Tristan and Iseult. Tristan is a Breton noble, and the Duke of Cornwall again figures prominently through his role as the orphaned Tristan's guardian.
Later, Conan IV was faced with additional revolts form barons, possibly sponsored by Henry II. Conan appealed to Henry II for aid to end the revolts. For his aid Henry II insisted on the betrothal of Conan's only daughter and heiress Constance to Henry's son Geoffrey Plantagenet, continuing the policy of interweaving the Breton succession with the Plantagenet's succession. Constance's three marriages figured prominently in the development of the Duchy.
Constance succeeded her father as duchess in 1171. From the start Geoffrey, as jure uxoris duke, excluded Constance from exercising authority in government. However, in 1186 in Paris, Geoffrey was stamped to death in a riding accident during a tournament. Constance thereafter became the effective ruler of Brittany.
Henry II of England next arranged for Constance to marry Ranulph de Meschines, 4th Earl of Chester on 3 February 1188. Henry II was succeeded by Richard I as King of England. In 1191 King Richard I of England officially proclaimed his nephew, Constance's son, Arthur I of Brittany, as his heir presumptive in a treaty signed with Philip II of France. To promote her son's position and inheritance, Constance, Duchess of Brittany abdicated in his favour in 1194.
Constance's marriage with Ranulph deteriorated, with Ranulph imprisoning Constance in 1196. Her imprisonment sparked rebellion across Brittany on her behalf. Ranulph bowed to growing pressure and had the Duchess released in 1198 and once back in Brittany, Constance had her marriage annulled. Later in 1198 at Angers, Constance took Guy of Thouars as her 'second' husband. Through-out these years, Constance advised her son towards a French alliance, pursuing the policy of her late husband Geoffrey II. In 1201, at age 40, Constance bore her third husband, Guy of Thouars twin daughters. the first born, Alix of Thouars, followed by Katherine of Thouars (1201-c. 1240). Constance died due to complications during the delivery.
When Richard I died in 1199, Phillip II agreed to recognize Arthur as count of Anjou, Maine, and Poitou, in exchange for Arthur swearing fealty to Phillip II, becoming a direct vassal of France. However 13-year-old Arthur was captured by the English while besieging Mirebeau. By 1202 the imprisoned Arthur of Brittany was transferred to Rouen, under the charge of William de Braose, and then vanished mysteriously in April 1203. Scandal surrounding Arthur's disappearance led many to believe that he was murdered on John of England's orders.
With Arthur's death, the succession of Brittany remained in question. Arthur's legal successor was Eleanor of Brittany. However John of England had Eleanor captured and imprisoned at Corfe Castle in Dorset. Recognizing that John of England could have Eleanor married to a vassal loyal to England, who would rule Brittany through her, Philip II of France formally recognized Constance's infant daughter Alix as hereditary Duchess of Brittany. Initially Alix's father Guy of Thouars acted as regent. Phillip II of France was maneuvering to keep Brittany within his sphere of influence.
The marriage of the infant Alix to Capetian cadet Peter of Dreux in 1213 began the new House of Dreux. This allowed Brittany a measure of autonomy again, while continuing to give lip service to Capetian sovereignty. After Guy of Thouars's regency over the Duchy, Alix ruled as nominal Duchess with her husband, now Peter I, Duke of Brittany serving as Co-Ruler or as "Duke jure uxoris."
In 1214 when John set an expedition into France, he wanted to establish Eleanor as his puppet duchess. Instead, after his defeat he recognized Alix and Peter as rulers of the Duchy. Eleanor was kept captive in England till her death in 1241, ending the line of Geoffrey II.
The Ducal alliance with the House of Dreux also represented a progression in the influence of the French King in Brittany. The French king established royal courts in various parts of eastern Brittany, but the western most regions of the duchy remained fiercely independent. Many of the oldest remaining Breton noble families represent fusions of the earliest Breton noble families with French nobles of this period. It is through their histories that we can document the travails of the Duchy to remain independent, maintain relations with both England and France, and eventually merge into France.
In 1235 the stage is set for the next century's Breton War of Succession when the Duke of Brittany Pierre Mauclerc disposes the heir of the Penthievre Dynasty in order to give the countship of Penthievre to his second child, his daughter Yolande of Brittany. On her death, her brother John I, Duke of Brittany seizes the countship for himself.
The Duchy of Brittany experiences nearly a century of peace. Peter I continues as Regent for a time for his son John I who marries Blanche of Navarre. John I in turn is succeeded by his son John II who marries Beatrice of England and rules until 1305.
The 13th Century opens for the Duchy of Brittany with Arthur II as Duke. Arthur II's rule includes several administrative innovations including the creation of several "battles" or districts meant to provide a stronger defense, and the creation of the Estates of Brittany, marking a critical step towards a parliamentary form of government. Arthur II's reign is also marked by his two marriages, first to Mary of Limoges followed by Yolande of Dreux, Queen of Scotland.
Arthur II's son by Mary of Limoges, John III becomes Duke but fails to produce a living heir, despite three marriages. John III's succession efforts are focused on his attempts to deny his half brother, John IV from his rightful inheritance of the Ducal Crown. At first he attempts to name the King of France as heir in an act that defies all precedents to maintain Brittany as an independent sovereign state, and the Breton nobles reject this. John III dies without a succcesion plan. When his half brother, John IV asserts his claim, this is rejected by the King of France who favors the competing claims of Joanna of Dreux and her husband Charles of Blois. The Breton War of Succesion ensues, and because it involves the King of France, the stage is set for the Duchy's eventual loss of independence, although this would take an additional hundred years.
John III's brother Guy de Penthievre predeceases him and leaves his daughter, Joanna of Penthievre as a claimant to the Ducal Crown. In 1337 Joan, Duchess of Brittany married Charles de Blois (Charles I, Duke of Brittany) but war ensues upon their assumption of the titles Duke and Duchess of Brittany due to the opposition of John IV who does not cede his own rights. The Breton War of Succession was fought from 1341 to 1364 between the House of Blois and the House of Montfort. John of Montfort emerged victorious with substantial help from English allies and became John IV, Duke of Brittany reigning for a short period. Joan and Charles were allowed to keep Penthievre, and Joan retained the title Duchess of Brittany for life. The Houses of Penthievre and Montfort were united in their opposition of Charles V of France who took the opportunity of this Civil War to attempt the annexation of Brittany to the French crown. This line of the Blois-Penthievre family maintained close ties to the successive Kings of France and through the French crown the family were often present in Brittany in some oversight capacity. Under the Treaties of Guerande semi-Salic succession was agreed under which, if the reigning member of the House of Montfort died without legitimate male issue, the eldest direct legitimate male descendant of Joanna of Penthievre would inherit the Ducal crown of Brittany. The victory of the House of Montfort strengthened the position of England in Brittany. The conflicts between the House of Montfort and the House of Penthievre continued into the 15th Century. One of the effects of the Breton War of Succession was to intensify the rivalries between England and France with Brittany as the contested prize.
John V, Duke of Brittany ruled with difficulty before being forced into exile in England in 1373. The French king sent the Constable of France Bertrand de Guesclin into Brittany with the goal of uniting it to the French crown. When the Breton nobles rebelled against this proposed unification John V was able to return, again assisted by a strong English ally, and re-established his rule. The deposed Joanna, Duchess of Brittany joined in the efforts to return John V to Brittany to defend the Duchy against the advances of Charles V of France. The difficulties of the House of Montfort would continue when John VI, Duke of Brittany succeeded his father.
This period of war is also notable for beginning of Parliamentary Rule in Brittany, marked by the founding of the Estates of Brittany which would work later with the Parlement of Brittany during the reign of Duke Francis II. After the Breton War of Succession, Brittany still had links with the English Crown through the Earldom of Richmond, until the Wars of the Roses. The Duchy of Brittany became subsumed into the crown of France during the tapering reign of the Montfort house.
The intrigues and contests between the House of Montfort and the House of Penthievre continued well after the Breton War of Succession. The successor to John V, John VI, Duke of Brittany, was kidnapped by the son of Joan, Duchess of Brittany, the Count of Penthievre. He was freed through the efforts of his wife the Duchess of Brittany, Joan of France, who confiscated the remaining wealth of the Penthievre family. Their later descendants, the Brosse line of the House of Penthievre through Jean de Brosse were denied their claims to the Ducal Crown in the 15th Century possibly as an alteration of the rules of inheritance by the then Duke of Brittany, Francis II. John VI was succeeded first by his son Francis I, Duke of Brittany, and leaving no male heir was followed by a younger son of John VI, Peter II, Duke of Brittany. When Peter II died without issue the Ducal Crown passed to his uncle Arthur III, Duke of Brittany. He was, in turn, succeeded by his nephew Francis II, Duke of Brittany.
The string of Ducal inheritance, from John VI through two sons and back to his brother, illustrates the mode of royal inheritance under Semi-Salic law described as "a la mode de la Bretagne" (in the Breton fashion). The characterization of a noble inheritance "a la mode de la Bretagne" was used in modern times by King Juan Carlos of Spain to explain his preferences with regards to the embarrassing claim to the title Duke of Anjou by both a Spanish member of the House of Bourbon and a member of the French House of Orleans.
The reign of Francis II, Duke of Brittany is notable in many respects including two wars against Charles VIII of France, both of which were lost, the establishment of the Parlement of Brittany, and the death of all his children save for his daughter Anne of Brittany. The wars with France eventually cost Ducal Brittany is independence, while the Parlement ensured a degree of autonomy that would continue through the reign of Louis XIV of France. That Francis II's sole heir was his daughter Anne assured an inheritance contest on his death that would pit the power of the House of Montfort against conflicting treaty obligations to the House of Penthievre in Brittany and the House of Valois in France, and would also be a test of the Breton tradition of semi-Salic law in which a daughter could be the principal inheritor. The position of the King of France dominated these events through two wars. After the first war, under the Treaty of Verger the marriage of Francis II's sole surviving issue, Anne, would need to be approved by the King of France.
Francis II worked to seek a husband for Anne who would be strong enough to defend Brittany from further influence from the French Crown. Duchesse Anne of Brittany was initially betrothed to Edward, Prince of Wales, the son of Edward IV of England, but upon the king's death his son disappeared and the English thrown passed to the notorious Richard III of England. Anne was then married to Maximillian I of Austria.
However, the relations between Brittany and France deteriorated and France II was forced into the last Franco-Breton war, which he lost. At the end of the second war between Frances II and Charles VIII of France, the so-called Mad War, Anne of Brittany's first marriage to Maximillian was declared illegal on the basis that the French King had not approved it under the terms of the Treaty of Verger. Anne was married to Charles VIII of France in a ceremony that was validated by Pope Innocent III. Once they were married, Charles would not allow Anne to use the title Duchess of Brittany. However, upon his death, Anne returned to Brittany and took steps to return the Duchy to independent rule under herself as Duchess. The children of Charles and Anne did not reach adulthood and this presented a new Breton succession problem as well as one for France. Both succession issues were solved upon Anne's marriage to Louis XII of France but at the cost of restoring and furthering the independence of Brittany.
The birth of Anne of Brittany's sole heir with Louis XII of France, her daughter Claude of France, introduced a new succession issue in Brittany and France. In Brittany, with the provisions of the Treaty of Guerande set aside by the Estates of Brittany Claude could claim to be Duchess of Brittany in her own right, as several Duchesses by right of inheritance had done over the centuries. France, however operated under strict Salic law, requiring a male heir. The French requirement was solved upon Claude's marriage to Francis I of France. The birth of Claude's sons Frances (who became Frances III, Duke of Brittany, as well as the Dauphin of France) and Henry II of France represented a resolution to these contrasting succession issues but accelerated the loss of independence of Brittany and the eventual disappearance of the Ducal title as an independent sovereign Ducal crown.
Queen Claude of France, reigned as duchess of Brittany from 1514, but under her husband king Francis was not able to maintain an independent government in the Duchy of Brittany. Claude's son Francis was invested as duke of Brittany. But this act meant next to nothing for Breton independence. Some members of the House of Penthievre were appointed as royal governors of Brittany by the French. Their failure to successfully reassert their Ducal rights hastened the merger of the Ducal crown into the Kingdom of France. At this time the title Duke of Brittany begins to lose independent sovereign status and begins to become only titular in character; the Breton region loses independence and becomes a province of France.
Brittany, during the Middle Ages, the Kings of France considered that the Duchy of France was feudally a part of their Kingdom of France (i.e. it was within the traditional borders of the realm, and the King of France was deemed to be overlord of the Duchy). In effect, however, the Duchy of Brittany was a largely independent sovereign state. It was recognized as independently sovereign and lying outside the Kingdom of France by Louis IV, and ally of Alan II, Duke of Brittany. Subsequent Kings of France sought to control Brittany in part because of the attempts of the King of England and the King of Spain to control the Duchy.
The independent sovereign nature of the Duchy began to come to an end upon the death of Francis II of Brittany. The Duchy was inherited by his daughter, Anne, but King Charles VIII of France, determined to bring the territory under royal control. Charles VIII had her marriage annulled and then forced her to marry him in a series of actions that were acknowledged by the Pope. As a result, the Kingdom of France and the Duchy of Brittany were placed in the personal union of their marriage, and the King of France also held the title of Duke of Brittany jure uxoris . During their marriage, the Charles VIII prohibited Anne of Brittany from using the title Duchess of Brittany and imposed a Royal Governor from the House of Penthievre on the Duchy.
Legally, however, the Duchy remained separate from France proper; the two titles were linked only by the marriage of the King and Queen, and in 1498 when Charles VIII died childless, the title Duke of Brittany remained with Anne, rather than passing to the heir of France, Louis XII. Anne of Brittany returned to Brittany and began to re-establish an independent sovereign rule.
However, the new French King, Louis XII married Anne himself, and so the King of France was once more Duke of Brittany jure uxoris. Legally, Brittany still remained distinct, and its future remained dependent on the Ducal bloodline, now held by the House of Montfort. When Anne died, Brittany passed to her daughter and heiress, Claude, rather than remaining with the King of France, her father.
Claude married the future King of France, Francis I. By this marriage, and through the succession to the French crown, the King of France became Duke of Brittany jure uxoris once more.
Claude's death in 1524 separated the Duchy from the crown once more, and (it would transpire) for the final time. Because Claude, like her mother, was sovereign Duchess, the title of 'Duke' did not remain with her husband, but instead passed to her son, Francis III of Brittany, who was also Dauphin of France. Legally, the Crown and Duchy were again separate, but the Duke was a child, and the Duchy had been governed as an integral part of France for years; the King had little trouble in maintaining royal control over the Duchy. Breton independence was effectively ended when in 1532 the Estates of Brittany proclaimed the perpetual union of Brittany with the French crown. Legally, the Duchy was part of France.
Francis III remained Duke of Brittany, but died without attaining the French crown in 1536. He was succeeded by his brother, Henry II. Henry II was the first royal to become both King of France and Duke of Brittany in his own right. France. Any trace of Breton independence ended with the ascension of Henry, as Henry II of France, to the French throne. The French Crown and Breton Duchy were now united by inheritance, and the merging of Brittany into France was thus completed. Henry II was not crowned separately as Duke of Brittany. However Henry attempted to create a separate legal status for Brittany vis-a-vis the Kingdom of France similar to the position of the Duchy of Cornwall to the Kingdom of Great Britain. In some histories it is meant to be a ducal territory he would attempt to preserve for himself and his heirs if he was to lose the French Crown. This attempt at legal separation did not survive his reign. The French view that Brittany had merged into France did not enjoy universal support, as many Bretons would have liked a return to greater traditional autonomy and other European royal houses would have liked to see France weaken her own borders.
When Henry III (last direct male from Claude of France) died, Brittany passed as part of the Crown to the next heir of France, Henry of Navarre, rather than to Claude's most senior heirs (either Henry II, Duke of Lorraine or Infanta Isabella Clara Eugenia of Spain). While these nobles were technically Henry's heirs, there were problems with both claimants to the Ducal crown. The most important issue was that the crown, as a Sovereign Duke could not be separated from that of the French Crown. Meanwhile the French Crown and the Spanish Crown had been permanently separated beginning with the reign of Philip of Spain.
Infanta Isabella was the eldest daughter of the late eldest sister of Henry III but being female weakened her status, and her position as Infanta all but blocked inheritance to the Breton Duchy. Henry, Duke of Lorraine was at least male, but as son of a younger sister, his claim was also weakened. Brittany had a tradition of giving some - but not all - precedence to male heirs even in cases where the male heir was descended through the female line. In addition to sovereign claims of rule over Brittany by the King of France as Duke were never in doubt whether during the French reign of the House of Valois or the House of Bourbon.
Philip II of Spain, France' main foe at the time, challenged either heir to divide as much of France between them as could be taken. Brittany did not figure in this challenge and remained the property of the King of France. Philippe Emmanuel, Duke of Mercœur, a leader of Catholic League, whom king Henry III had in 1582 made royal governor of Brittany, ruled Brittany in the name of his own underage son Philippe Louis de Lorraine-Mercœur who through maternal ancestry was the direct primogenitural heir of Duchess Joanna, of the House of Penthièvre, wife of Charles of Blois. Mercœur organized a government at Nantes, supported by the Spaniards. It took several years until in 1598 the Mercœur government surrendered in 1598 to Henry IV of France who had one of his own bastards marry the young daughter of the Mercœurs, and confirmed the direct French control of the province.
The title Duke of Brittany largely ceased to be used as a title of the King of France after the death of Claude of France. When it appeared the title was bestowed by the King of France to one of his direct descendants, and was in any event titular in status.
Under the Kings of France the nobles of Brittany continued to enjoy the privileges that had been accorded them by the various independent Dukes of Brittany. Brittany's Celtic legal traditions were maintained, to a degree, and the Estates of Brittany and the Parlement of Brittany) were kept separate from the French parliamentary system in Paris. The Breton noble privileges protected in this parliamentary system included exemption from taxes, representation in the Breton Parlement, and the maintenance of Breton titles in the tradition of the Duchy rather than that of France, including, in theory, the application of Brittany's form of semi-Salic, rather than pure Salic, Law to the succession issues.
After Henry II the title Duke of Brittany was not used for over 200 years. The title Duke of Brittany reappeared when a great-grandson of Louis XIV was named Louis, Duke of Brittany; He was the last holder of the title prior to the French Revolution and in any event did not live to inherit the French throne. At his death the title effectively became defunct.
Claims on the titular Ducal title by Spanish nobles at various times were not to be considered legitimate by the French, and its use by Louis XIV demonstrated that as the title had merged into the crown of France only the King could assert the title himself or bestow it on another. Louis XIV's actions with regard to the Ducal title also underscored the fact that the Spanish or cadet branch of the House of Bourbon had relinquished all French claims and inheritance rights as a condition of gaining the crown of Spain under the Treaty of Utrecht.
Shortly before the French Revolution the leaders of the Parlement of Brittany issued Remonstrances to Louis XVI, in part to remind the King of his duties as Duke and to preserve the privileges of the Breton people under the Treaty of Union. The King's response was to close the Breton Parlement. The Remontrances were delivered to the King by Members of the Breton Parliament led by the Comte de Saisy de Kerampuil, and others.
When French King Louis XVI dissolved the Breton Parlement he did so to strengthen his claims as an absolute monarch (where a representative parlement was not necessary). He also did this to advance a centralized federal form of government, but in so doing preserved the nature of the Brittany's autonomy by acknowledging its nobles' traditional privileges; in so doing the King acted as the Duke of Brittany. In its last recorded act before the French Revolution, the Parlement of Brittany acted to preserve the independence of the Duchy of Brittany and that of its Duke, by voting that the King's actions were not legal or enforceable, and that only the Parlement could dissolve itself. In so doing the Parlement was making the point that the King of France had acted in a manner that disadvantaged the Duke of Brittany, and that the role of the Parlement was to preserve the Breton privileges and the relations among the nobles of Brittany including the position of Duke, even if the title was held simultaneously by the King.
The Breton Parlement has not met since this event. During the French Revolution, the legal state of Brittany was dissolved by the French NAtional Assembly. The province of Brittany was divided and replaced by the 5 departements that have continued in the modern French Republic.
(See also Style of the French Sovereign)
The Holy Roman Catholic church and the evolution of Christianity in western Europe had dramatic impacts on Ducal Brittany. The earliest settlers are believed to have been part of a larger Druid culture that flourished prior to the Roman times. The alignments of Carnac are the largest Druidic ruin outside of Ireland and the British Isles. There are numerous burial mounds such as the Tumultus St. Michel and the Breton landscape is contains many Druidic Menhirs. The lines of the Druidic lords and priests had evaporated by the time of the Roman invasions and did not figure in the development of Ducal Brittany.
The Roman occupation had little success in transporting the pre-Christian Roman gods to the Breton people, although Roman temples can still be found, for example north of St-Brieuc on the road to Guingamp. The earliest rulers of the Breton Region were likely former Roman military officers and leaders who filled the void of the withdrawal of the Roman occupation. The earliest infuence of the Christian Church was seen in the reign of Conan Meriadoc whose wife, Darerca of Ireland, was the sister of St. Patrick. Darerca was both a Queen of Brittany and a Christian saint. Later rulers of Brittany also achieved sainthood, such as Salomon, but often this was more a matter of local tradition in the eyes of the Breton people than a formal sainthood bestowed by Rome. The list of Breton saints contains many names not recognized by the modern Roman Catholic Church. Queen Darerca was descended from St Martin of Tours and this relationship is the foundation for Christian Brittany's relation with the Bishop of Tours during the Ducal period.
The Breton peninsula was the focus of a substantial missionary effort by clergy from the British Isles. The leading missionaries become the original seven founding saints of Brittany. As Brittany evolved from a waring kingdom to an established post-Viking invasion Duchy, the Dukes often attempted to strengthen their position by advancing the career of Chrisitan Bishops, but were frequently rebuffed by Rome. The Duke's attempt to raise the Bishop of Dol to the position of Archbishop by asking the Pope to grant the Bishop the symbolic pallium failed. The Duke wanted so as to give Brittany her own Christian patriarch, which would have reinforced his power over the region, or so he thought; instead, Rome reinforced the obligation of Breton Bishops to report to the Archbishop of Tours, outside of the Breton Duchy. In this period Rome continued to support a Holy Roman Emperor and while Brittany's Dukes achieved secular independence from England, France and the Vikings, her Bishops remained obligated to the external Church imbedded in the Empire's structure.
In the Middle Ages Bishops were also frequently secular Lords in their own right. This complicated the central authority of the Roman Church. In Brittany, the Bishop and Lord of Quimper was tremendously popular until his son, on inheriting the Bishops ring, was admonished by the Church. Future Bishops would no longer be permitted to hand their Bishop's mitre and ring to their heirs, and shortly thereafter Rome moved to a system of complete celibacy for all ranks of clergy above Deacon, meaning the Bishops could no longer marry or have legitimate children. This coincided with the strong movement within the church to centralize its authority in Rome and diminish the independence of regional churches, including those of each of the celtic regions.
Once Ducal Brittany was joined to the French Crown through the marriage of Anne of Brittany, there was an effort to bring a unified form of Christianity to the Breton people, and this was done by creating Catholic catechisms in the Breton language. The first such catechism is thought to have been written by a Benedictine monk, the Comte de Saisy et de Kerampuil. The most successful effort in this regard was the efforts of the Jesuit priest Julian Maunoir from the town of Plevin, near Carhaix; Pere Maunoir was beatified by Rome in 1951. His efforts had the dramatic effect of unifying the Breton people around the Catholic faith in a way that the Dukes of Brittany had not been able to accomplish. The Calvaires and the annual "pardons" of Brittany which date from this period reflect this effect. This unity, based in religion, assisted the French King to both rule and control the Duchy and was consistent with the King's excellent relations with Rome as reflected in the descriptor "most Christian King" given to most French kings by the Pope since the time of Louis XI of France, a saint of the Holy Roman Catholic Church.
Unfortunately this religious movement served to eliminate any vestige of autonomy from the French crown as the independent nature of the Duchy was lost to the French kings. After the French Revolution and to the modern day, Brittany has adopted as secular a posture as other parts of the 5th Republic of France, and many of the Christian churches are little used or have been transformed for use for other purposes,mostly as museums maintained either by the Church or by the towns in which they are located. While the average Breton resident of Breton background will claim to be Christian, however inactive or lapsed, the modern state of the Church in Brittany is neutral in its impact on any future emergence of a Ducal Brittany.
The efforts of Pere Maunoir within Brittany coincided with the missionary work of[Louis-Marie de Grignion, also known as Saint Louis de Montfort. Louis de Grignon was a Catholic priest and founder of the Montfort order; this order had much success as a missionary order spreading the Roman Catholic form of Christianity throughout the world. Saint Louis de Montfort's esteem in the Church was enhanced through the acknowledgements his order received from Pope John Paul II. The efforts of the Montfort missionaries was purely religious and have had little if any impact on modern Brittany and no effect on Ducal Brittany.
Ducal Brittany operated under an evolving set of celtic customs. These customs included the division of a kingdom among a ruler's sons, and Semi-Salic laws of succession.
The celtic tradition of granting each son part of a kingdom reflected the manner in which Charlemagne passed his own empire to his sons. In Brittany, the custom as abandoned as early as the time of Conan Meriadoc most likely because the new rulers' incentives were to control and expand the Duchy, not divide it. What remained, however, through the merger of the Duchy into France was the frequent contests and rivalry between the great houses of Brittany for the Ducal crown.
Following the celtic norms for royalty, as compared with the French royalty's application of Salic law, the role of Sovereign Duke would sometimes be held by a woman, typically when the oldest heir of a Breton Duke was his daughter or no direct male heir existed. Inheritance of the ducal title could pass to a female heir if she was the only direct heir of a Duke. Duchesses ruled Brittany in their own right at several points during the Duchy's history and at others their consorts either served as Co-ruler, or claimed direct control of the Duchy as a right in marriage. See the histories of Duchesse Alix, the ducal claimant Joan of Penthievre, Duchesse Anne, and Claude of France as Duchesse.
The Duke of Brittany was forced to live in exile or seek protection and allies outside the Duchy several times in the Duchy's history. Alan II lived in exile in England and returned to claim the Duchy with the help of an English army. The claimant Joan of Penthievre was exiled after losing the War of Succession and never reclaimed the Ducal crown. During the first part of the 10th century Brittany was ruled as an occupied land by Viking invaders, who were eventually repulsed.
The decline of sovereign ducal power was accompanied by the increasing influence of the French crown who named military governors of Brittany during Ducal rule, and emergence of democratic forces as a result of the War of Succession which saw first the founding of the Estates of Brittany, followed by the founding of the Parlement of Brittany.
The relation of the Duke and Breton nobles reflected ancient celtic customs unique to celtic lands and distinct from the relations of Kings to their nobles in post Conquest England and Capetian France. The Duke raised armies provided by the nobles who received concessions in return including exemption from taxes, and later, the right to sit in either the Breton Estates or Parlement.
The Estates of Brittany were founded by Arthur II of the House of Breuxk. Arthur II was considered completely independent of the Kingdom of France. He convoked the first Estates of Brittany in 1309. In addition to creating a parliamentary body,Arthur II addded the innovation of including the third estate.
These parliamentary bodies figured prominently in the Breton War of Succession and helped resolve the Ducal Claims of the House of Penthievre in favor of the House of Montfort. The Estates of Brittany acted during the reign of Francis II of the House of Montfort to nullify provisions of the Treaty of Guerande and confirm that Anne was Francis II's sole and legal Ducal heir. The action in favor of Anne, Duchess of Brittany effectively ended the Ducal claims of the House of Penthievre.
The Parliament of Brittany was founded in 1485 by Francis II and firt met in Vannes. Later the Parliament was moved to Rennes where the Parliament building remains in use to today as a Court of Justice. Initially the Parliament of Brittany functioned as a sovereign court of justice and was designed, among other things, to protect the ancient rights of the Breton nobles. Many of its members were also members of the Estates of Brittany.
After the Duchy of Brittany was merged into the Crown of France, the Parliament of Brittany took on greater responsiblity to manage and preserve the rights of the Duchy as separate from the Kingdom of France. After Henry II of France while the King of France held all rights as Duke of Brittany he was neither frequently present nor entirely inclined to preserve the independent actions of the Duchy. As the Kings of France moved to greater centralized authority under Louis XIV of France, Louis XV of France and Louis XVI of France. tensions between the Kingdom and the Duchy grew and surfaced within the actions of the Parliament of Brittany.
In September 1771, the Parliament was closed by order of Louis XVI of France; the National Assembly subsequently issued a French law to close the Parliament in 1790. The Parliament of Brittany met and it was established that these actions had no force of law based on the breton laws and traditions on which the Parliament had been founded.
There is no modern-day Duchy of Brittany. The Duchy of Brittany and the sovereign title and role of the Duke of Brittany no longer exist in the modern 5th Republic of France.
The only use of the title Duke of Brittany is as a courtesy title sometimes claimed by the Spanish Legitimist Pretender to the French Throne. The Spanish use of the courtesy title is self-bestowed and thus controversial; the controversy stems from the French Royal tradition that the title may only be used when bestowed by the French monarch, and once it was joined to the French crown its after Claude of France stopped following a strict primogeniture line of inheritance. Its current use as a courtesy title is part of the greater concerns about Legitimist Pretenders to the French crown expressed by Juan Carlos of Spain . Orleanist Pretenders to the French throne representing the House of Orleans have honored the traditional use of the title within the House of Bourbon and neither claimed nor used the courtesy title. In the absence of the sovereign Ducal title, the most frequently observed senior noble title in use today in modern Brittany, is that of Comtealthough under modern French law ancient noble titles and prerogatives are no longer recognized, if still acknowledged.
Modern French royalty do, however, carry Breton noble titles that had been linked to the title Duke of Brittany. There are two nobles who use the title Duke of Anjou (see Louis Alphonse, Duke of Anjou, the Spanish Legitimist pretender to the French throne and Prince Charles Philippe, Duke of Anjou, a Member of the House of Orleans, and an Orleanist pretender to the French throne.
The history of the Duchy reflects the various efforts expended by its Dukes to preserve its independence. Some French kings sought to maintain the autonomy of the Duchy for the benefit of their heirs much in the style of the relation between the modern Duchy of Cornwall to the modern Crown of Great Britain. The modern political era continues the Breton tradition of independence whether at the level of the Duchy or the cultural region known as Brittany, with various movements for the independence and autonomy of the Breton region becoming more active and successful in recent times.
The Breton Parlement no longer meets. Its seat was in Rennes where the Parliament building remains in use. It was disbanded by Louis XIV but the Parlement voted to ignore the King's order of dissolution upon the claim it is all alone had the authority to dissolve this legislative and judicial body. The Breton Parlement has no modern analogous body and the Parlement has not met in any form since the French Revolution. The return of an active Breton Parlement remains a cultural possibility, even if the legal preconditions for its reactivation have only a remote chance of being aligned within the current Constitution of the 5th French Republic.
In the modern 5th Republic of France, the lands of the Duchy have been divided into several French departements. There is no single regional governing or representative body for the lands that would comprise the Duchy, were it to re-emerge. In addition in most modern French federal assessments the former Breton capital city of Nantes is placed in the département of Loire-Atlantique rather than one of the four clearly Breton departements. Modern French law allows a local area to hold a referendum that would have the effect of re-locating it within the Départemental system of the French Republic. Thus the legal mechanics exist to re-unite Nantes with the rest of the Duchy's region.
The independent spirit of the Duchy is sometimes expressed culturally. In recent years there has been a resurgence in the use of the Breton language and the emergence of so-called Diwan schools where instruction is in Breton rather than French. Annual Breton cultural festivals and their celebration of Breton's celtic culture have become increasingly linked with other Celtic and Gaelic festivals throughout the world. While the Breton Departements remain firmly anchored in a Republican France that is a member of the new European Common Union, there have been occasional efforts to amend the French Constitution to provide for autonomy for the Breton Region.
The region of Richmondshire in England was often held by Breton dukes themselves or their secundogeniture during the Middle Ages. Further complicating the political landscape were the competing ambitions played out in both Brittany and Richmondshire; Plantagenet Richmondshire under John of Lancaster, 1st Duke of Bedford supported English claims to the French throne, whilst Capet Brittany opposed this. During the Wars of the Roses, Richmond allied itself with the House of Lancaster under the Tudor earls, themselves supported by the Duke of Brittany.
Control of Richmondshire reflected the shifting of power between Britain and Brittany. Arthur III (in Breton Arzhur III) (August 24, 1393 – December 26, 1458), known as the Justicier and as Arthur de Richemont, was Lord of Parthenay and titular Count (Earl) of Richmond in England and, for eleven months at the very end of his life, Duke of Brittany and Count of Montfort after inheriting those titles upon the death of his nephew. Brittany's tenure in Richmond passed to Britain through Henry FitzRoy, 1st Duke of Richmond and Somerset (15 June 1519–18 June 1536) the only illegitimate offspring that Henry VIII acknowledged. FitzRoy was created Earl of Nottingham and Duke of Richmond and Somerset on 16 June 1525. Henry FitzRoy advertised his royal connection with quartered ermine in his coat of arms. Upon his death without children in 1536 it became extinct. The British title to Richmond was next gifted to Ludovic Stewart, 2nd Duke of Lennox, 1st Earl of Richmond (September 29, 1574 – February 16, 1624) a Scottish nobleman and politician.
The titles Duke of Richmond and Duke of Brittany ceased to be held by the same individual and were separated as Brittany became more closely associated with France. Richmond became a dukedom in its own right and remained joined to the Kingdom of Britain. During the same period, the Duchy of Brittany and the Kingdom of Navarre were united in France in the same manner as the Principality of Wales and Kingdom of Scotland were united with the Kingdom of England to form the core states within the Kingdom of Great Britain.
Ties with Scotland and France, forged in the 16th century further influenced the pedigree of the Dukedom of Richmond. The English title Duke of Richmond was bestowed on Charles Lennox, the son of English King Charles II and the Breton noblewoman Louise de Kérouaille, Duchess of Portsmouth. Their modern descendants include the late Diana, Princess of Wales, Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, and Sarah, Duchess of York, and their children.
The modern Dukes of Richmond also owe their honorific title of Duke of Aubigny (after Aubigny-sur-Nère in Berry), to the Breton Louise de Kérouaille, Duchess of Portsmouth. This relationship connected Richmond to the Auld Alliance, through Breton roots in the House of Stuart.
The rule of the legendary High King of Briton, Uther Pendragon and his son Arthur coincide roughly with the 5th Century early emigrations from the Cornish region to Brittany which later became a determined emigration of Cornish and other Brythonic settlers escaping the expansion of the Anglo-Saxons through Great Britain.
While Uther is not directly active in Amorica, his son's emergence involves a number of Breton figures, ranging from Merlin, and Gorlois the Duke of Cornwall at the castle Tintagel, to members of the Round Table. including Hoel King of Brittany and Leodegrance.
Arhurian Brittany is identified as a territory linked to the Dukes of Cornwall and the knights of the Round Table. King Leodegrance's kingdom was located in Carhaix or alternatively in Southwestern Great Britain. He served Arthur's father Uther Pendragon, and his daughter Guinevere became both Queen of Brittany, in her own right, and the wife of Arthur. French Arthurian legends describe Arthur's first major battle in the fields outside of Carhaix in defense of Leodegrance. These fields to the southeast of Carhaix are thought to be in an area associated with the legendary forest of Brocéliande. At Carhaix Arthur met and fell in love with Guinevere. Leodegrance is among the first of the Brythonic kings to accept Arthur as "Hi King", and the Uther's Round Table is his wedding gift to Arthur and Guinivere. The Round Table also includes Hoel, the King of Brittany as another Arthurian knight.
When Arthur suffered a significant wound in his last battle he was transported to the folkloric city of Avalon, thought to be located in Brittany, a region under the protection of the Duke of Cornwall. It is after the Arthurian period that a Ducal Brittany emerges.
The foundations for the Duchy of Brittany were the ancient kingdoms of the Vannetais and Domnonee, and smaller kingdom or province of Broërec founded by Waroch, the major cities which included the Duchy's future capitals, and the formation of various Dioceses of the Roman Catholic Church.
The kingdom of the Vannetais was the oldest and largest of the ancient breton kingdoms, and their kings are sometimes mistakenly titled Kings of Brittany by historians. The kingdom of Domnonee was created when the Armorican peninsula was settled by immigrants from the Kingdom of Domnonia on the main British isle; the two kingdoms evolved separately with Domnonia losing its celtic character during the Anglo-Saxon invasions, and Domnonee attaining a separate breton identity within the celtic peoples. The early rulers of Domnonee were titled Princes and eventually gained the title King of Brittany.
The emergence of a Duchy of Brittany was due in part to the unification of these three kingdoms.
The major Breton cities were founded as the civitas of the Romans. Each city gave rise to the noble class of Counts, or Comtes. At various times each major family holding a Countship vied to become Duke of Brittany, although the Counts of Rennes dominated all other houses in this pursuit. The Counts were vassals to the sovereign Duke of Brittany. Nantes was originally used by Frankish rulers as a position from which to launch attacks on the Breton Vannatais during the Breton March; the Bretons eventually prevailed and the position of Count of Nantes became subordinate to the sovereign Duke of Brittany.
Below the rank of Count emerged several Vicounts who were responsible for lesser territories known in Roman times as pagus. The Viscounty of Leon is of particular interest as it consistently claimed historic independence and autonomy from the Duke of Brittany. The Visoount of Penthievre is notable for rising to the later title of Duke after the Duchy of Brittany was merged into the French crown. And from time to time there were nobles who carried the lesser titles of Baron of Brittany (for example, Ralph de Guader), and Knight Banneret (for example, the Breton progenitor of the Scottish House of Stuart).
This is an incomplete list of traditional vassals of the Duke of Brittany. Some titles were promoted to duchy rank after the Duke of Brittany title merged with the French crown.
Titles as rendered into the Breton language:
The Earliest Counts Each of these Counts could trace the origins of their titles to the most ancient of kingdoms or settled areas of Brittany during the period prior to the creation of the Duchy. Each Countship controlled one of the four major Breton cities, which became, at various times, the capital of Armorica or the Duchy of Brittany. Each Count of Rennes, Vannes and Nantes, in turn, rose to become Duke of Brittany
The Later Counts These Countships generally arose after the formation of the Duchy of Brittany.
Each of the Seven Founder Saints was eventually ordained Bishop. The only native breton was St Tudwal. The other founders came from Wales, Ireland and Cornwall.
N.B. The Breton House of Cornouaille and its Cornouaille region is geographically and politically distinct from the British House of Cornwall and its Cornwall region.
The cadet branch of the House of Dreux
The senior or Penthièvre claim, that of Joanna of Penthièvre and of the Dukes of Mercœur, went through Bourbon-Vendôme (the illegitimate branch started by Cesar, bastard of Henry IV, and his Briton wife) to Marie-Jeanne de Savoie-Nemours, the mother of Victor Amadeus II of Sardinia and after her death in 1724, the Savoy kings of Sardinia, until Victor Emmanuel I was inherited by Dukes of Modena, and then subsequently inherited by Dukes of Bavaria, whose heir now is Franz, Duke of Bavaria.
The junior or Montfort claim, that of Isabella Clara Eugenia (who died in 1633), went to her nephew the duke of Savoy, whose descendant Victor Amadeus II of Sardinia inherited it from his father in 1675. Since Victor Amadeus subsequently in 1727 succeeded in his mother's rights too, the succession thus continued as explained above together with the senior claim all way down to Franz, Duke of Bavaria.
None of those claims had any effect on the political and dynastic situation of Brittany, which put the province squarely into the hands of the royal family, subject to the validity of claims that ante date the reign of the Duchesse Anne. Some of the younger sons of French-Navarrese and Spanish kings were titled "Duke of Brittany", unlike the claimants described above. These included Louis, Dauphin of France (1707-1712) and his elder brother Louis, who only survived one year (1704–1705). Alfonso, Duke of Anjou and Cádiz's heir François de Bourbon held "Duke of Brittany" as a courtesy title (1973–1984) but the title had been self-bestowed rather than granted by the King of France as was his right since the time of the Franco-Breton war and subject to other claims prior to the Treaty of Verger .