In ancient times, Armorica or Aremorica ( Gaulish : Aremorica ; Breton : Arvorig [arˈvoːrik] ; French : Armorique [aʁmɔʁik] ) was a region of Gaul between the Seine and the Loire that includes the Brittany Peninsula , and much of historical Normandy .
73-481: Dinan ( French pronunciation: [dinɑ̃] ; Breton: [ˈdinãn] ) is a walled Breton town and a commune in the Côtes-d'Armor department in northwestern France. On 1 January 2018, the former commune of Léhon was merged into Dinan. Instead of nestling on the valley floor like Morlaix , most urban development has been on the hillside overlooking the river Rance . The area alongside
146-473: A 750-metre long tidal barrage , which also serves as a crossing point nearer to the sea. Dinan station has rail connections to Saint-Brieuc, Lamballe and Dol-de-Bretagne. Inhabitants of Dinan are called dinannais and dinannaises . The medieval town on the hilltop has many fine old buildings, some of which date from the 13th century. The town retains a large section of the city walls, part of which can be walked round. Major historical attractions include
219-592: A Breton artistic revival but its ties with Nazism and the collaborationism of the Breton National Party during World War II weakened Breton nationalism in the post-war period. Brittany lost 240,000 men during the First World War . The Second World War was also catastrophic for the region. It was invaded by Nazi Germany in 1940 and freed after Operation Cobra in August 1944. However,
292-529: A different person. Brythonic (British Celtic) settlement increased during the Anglo-Saxon invasion of Britain in the 5th and 6th centuries to seek refuge from the Anglo-Saxon invaders. It is from this event that Brittany derives its name. Scholars such as Léon Fleuriot have suggested a two-wave model of migration from Britain which saw the emergence of an independent Breton people and established
365-542: A life of hunting and gathering, to become settled farmers. Agriculture was introduced during the 5th millennium BC by migrants from the south and east. However, the Neolithic Revolution in Brittany did not happen due to a radical change of population, but by slow immigration and exchange of skills. Neolithic Brittany is characterised by important megalithic production and sites such as Quelfénnec , it
438-669: A military presence in Bourges in central Gaul, but was betrayed by Arvandus , the Praetorian Prefect of Gaul, and subsequently ambushed by Euric's army. After a long battle, the Armorican survivors escaped to Avallon in Burgundy , after which they are lost to history. According to Breton king-lists, Riotham survived and reigned as Prince of Domnonia until his death sometime between 500 and 520, though this may have been
511-750: A result of the Mad War , the Duke Francis II could not have his daughter Anne married without the king of France's consent. Nonetheless, she married the Holy Roman Emperor in 1490, leading to a crisis with France. Charles VIII of France besieged Rennes and had the marriage cancelled. He eventually married Anne of Brittany . After he died childless, the duchess had to marry his heir and cousin Louis XII . Anne unsuccessfully tried to preserve Breton independence, but she died in 1514, and
584-693: A threat to the Republic. During the 19th century, the Breton language started to decline precipitously, mainly because of the Francization policy conducted under the Third Republic . On one hand, children were not allowed to speak Breton at school, and were punished by teachers if they did. Famously, signs in schools read: "It is forbidden to speak Breton and to spit on the floor" ("Il est interdit de parler Breton et de cracher par terre"). At
657-523: Is a peninsula , historical country and cultural area in the north-west of modern France , covering the western part of what was known as Armorica in Roman Gaul . It became an independent kingdom and then a duchy before being united with the Kingdom of France in 1532 as a province governed as a separate nation under the crown. Brittany is the traditional homeland of the Breton people and
730-512: Is one of the six Celtic nations , retaining a distinct cultural identity that reflects its history . Brittany has also been referred to as Little Britain (as opposed to Great Britain , with which it shares an etymology). It is bordered by the English Channel to the north, Normandy to the northeast, eastern Pays de la Loire to the southeast, the Bay of Biscay to the south, and
803-629: Is perfectly correct and logical, as Aremorica is not a country name but a word that describes a type of geographical region, one that is by the sea. Pliny lists the following Celtic tribes as living in the area: the Aedui and Carnuteni as having treaties with Rome ; the Meldi and Secusiani as having some measure of independence; and the Boii , Senones , Aulerci (both the Eburovices and Cenomani ),
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#1732772699095876-583: Is sometimes designated as the "core area" of megalithic culture. The oldest monuments, cairns , were followed by princely tombs and stone rows . The Morbihan département , on the southern coast, comprises a large share of these structures, including the Carnac stones and the Broken Menhir of Er Grah in the Locmariaquer megaliths , the largest single stone erected by Neolithic people. During
949-627: Is the traditional homeland of the Breton people and is one of the six Celtic nations , retaining a distinct cultural identity that reflects its history . A nationalist movement seeks greater autonomy within the French Republic, or independence from it. The reunification of Brittany is supported by half of the inhabitants of Brittany and of Loire-Atlantique, and is considered a prerequisite to further autonomy. The word Brittany , along with its French , Breton and Gallo equivalents Bretagne , Breizh and Bertaèyn , derive from
1022-605: Is why the Breton language is more closely related to recorded Cornish. The history behind such an establishment is unclear, but medieval Breton, Angevin and Welsh sources connect it to a figure known as Conan Meriadoc . Welsh literary sources assert that Conan came to Armorica on the orders of the Roman usurper Magnus Maximus , who sent some of his British troops to Gaul to enforce his claims and settled them in Armorica. This account
1095-650: The American War of Independence . These included many sailors such as Armand de Kersaint and soldiers such as Charles Armand Tuffin, marquis de la Rouërie . The Duchy was legally abolished with the French Revolution that began in 1789 - and in 1790 the province of Brittany was divided into five departments : Côtes-du-Nord (later Côtes-d'Armor ), Finistère , Ille-et-Vilaine , Loire-Inférieure (later Loire-Atlantique ) and Morbihan . Brittany essentially lost all its special privileges that existed under
1168-541: The Brythonic branch of the Insular Celtic languages, along with Welsh and Cornish , "on [the] sea" is war vor (Welsh ar fôr , "f" being voiced and pronounced like English "v"), but the older form arvor is used to refer to the coastal regions of Brittany, in contrast to argoad ( ar "on/at", coad "forest" [Welsh ar goed or coed "trees"]) for the inland regions. The cognate modern usages suggest that
1241-668: The Celtic Sea and the Atlantic Ocean to the west. Its land area is 34,023 km (13,136 sq mi) . Brittany is the site of some of the world's oldest standing architecture, home to the Cairn of Barnenez , the Tumulus Saint-Michel and others, which date to the early 5th millennium BC. Today, the historical province of Brittany is split among five French departments: Finistère in the west, Côtes-d'Armor in
1314-644: The Garonne estuary. This term probably comes from a Gallic word, aremorica , which means "close to the sea". Another name, Letauia (in English " Litavis "), was used until the 12th century. It possibly means "wide and flat" or "to expand" and it gave the Welsh name for Brittany: Llydaw . After the fall of the Western Roman Empire , many Cornish Britons settled in western Armorica to escape
1387-757: The Jacobins Theatre dating from 1224, the flamboyant Gothic St Malo's Church , the Romanesque St Saviour's Basilica , Duchess Anne's Tower and the Château de Dinan . A major highlight in the calendar is Dinan's Fête des Remparts. The town is transformed with decoration and many locals dress up in medieval garb for this two-day festival. The festival takes place over the third weekend in July every even-numbered year. At least in November,
1460-709: The Latin Britannia , which means "land of the Britons ". This word had been used by the Romans since the 1st century to refer to Great Britain, and more specifically the Roman province of Britain . This word derives from a Greek word, Πρεττανική (Prettanikḗ) or Βρεττανίαι (Brettaníai), used by Pytheas , an explorer from Massalia who visited the British Isles around 320 BC. The Greek word itself comes from
1533-698: The Parisii , Tricasses , Andicavi , Viducasses , Bodiocasses , Veneti , Coriosvelites , Diablinti , Rhedones , Turones , and the Atseui . Trade between Armorica and Britain, described by Diodorus Siculus and implied by Pliny was long-established. Because, even after the campaign of Publius Crassus in 56 BC, continued resistance to Roman rule in Armorica was still being supported by Celtic aristocrats in Britain . Julius Caesar led two invasions of Britain, in 55 BC, and again in 54 BC, in response. Some hint of
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#17327726990951606-527: The Roman Empire , Armorica was administered as part of the province of Gallia Lugdunensis , which had its capital in Lugdunum , (modern day Lyon ). When the Roman provinces were reorganized in the 4th century, Armorica ( Tractus Armoricanus et Nervicanus ) was placed under the second and third divisions of Lugdunensis. After the legions retreated from Britannia (407 AD) the local elite there expelled
1679-580: The Solent . This 'prehistoric' connection of Cornwall and Brittany set the stage for the link that continued into the medieval era. Still farther East, however, the typical Continental connections of the Britannic coast were with the lower Seine valley instead. Archaeology has not yet been as enlightening in Iron-Age Armorica as the coinage, which has been surveyed by Philip de Jersey . Under
1752-805: The Tractus Armoricani ('Armorican Tract'). In medieval Insular Celtic languages , the Celtic term *Litauia , meaning 'Land' or 'Country' (from an original Proto-Celtic * Litauī 'Earth', lit. 'the Vast One'), came to be used to designate the Brittany Peninsula, as in Old Irish Letha , Old Welsh Litau , Old Breton Letau , or in the Latinized form Letavia . In Breton , which belongs to
1825-1056: The protohistorical period , Brittany was inhabited by five Celtic tribes: Those people had strong economic ties to the Insular Celts , especially for the tin trade . Several tribes also belonged to an "Armorican confederation " which, according to Julius Caesar , gathered the Curiosolitae , the Redones , the Osismii , the Unelli , the Caletes , the Lemovices and the Ambibarii. The Unelli, Caletes, and Lemovices were respectively located in Cotentin (Lower-Normandy), pays de Caux (Upper-Normandy), and Limousin (Aquitaine);
1898-671: The "founder saints" of Brittany. The linguistic origins of Breton are clear: it is a Brythonic language descended from the Celtic British language , like Welsh and Cornish one of the Insular Celtic languages , brought by these migrating Britons. Still, questions of the relations between the Celtic cultures of Britain— Cornish and Welsh —and Celtic Breton are far from settled. Martin Henig (2003) suggests that in Armorica as in sub-Roman Britain : There
1971-477: The 15th to the 18th century, Brittany reached an economic golden age. The region was located on the seaways near Spain, England and the Netherlands and it greatly benefited from the creation of a French colonial empire . Local seaports like Brest and Saint-Brieuc quickly expanded, and Lorient , first spelled "L'Orient", was founded in the 17th century. Saint-Malo then was known for its corsairs , Brest
2044-555: The 9th century. The unification of Brittany was carried out by Nominoe , king between 845 and 851 and considered as the Breton Pater Patriae . Among the immigrant Britons, there were some clergymen who helped the evangelisation of the region, which was still pagan, particularly in rural areas. His son Erispoe secured the independence of the new kingdom of Brittany and won the Battle of Jengland against Charles
2117-580: The Bald . The Bretons won another war in 867, and the kingdom reached then its maximum extent: It received parts of Normandy , Maine and Anjou and the Channel Islands . Brittany was heavily attacked by the Vikings at the beginning of the 10th century. The kingdom lost its eastern territories, including Normandy and Anjou , and the county of Nantes was given to Fulk I of Anjou in 909. Nantes
2190-483: The Breton speaking area. Armorica The name Armorica is a Latinized form of the Gaulish toponym Aremorica , which literally means 'place in front of the sea'. It is formed with the prefix are - ('in front of') attached to - mori - ('sea') and the feminine suffix -(i)cā , denoting the localization (or provenance). The inhabitants of the region were called Aremorici ( sing. Aremoricos ), formed with
2263-807: The Duchy. Three years later, the area became a centre of royalist and Catholic resistance to the Revolution during the Chouannerie . During the 19th century, Brittany remained in economic recession, and many Bretons emigrated to other French regions, particularly to Paris. This trend remained strong until the beginning of the 20th century. Nonetheless, the region was also modernising, with new roads and railways being built, and some places being industrialised. Nantes specialised in shipbuilding and food processing (sugar, exotic fruits and vegetables, fish...), Fougères in glass and shoe production, and metallurgy
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2336-623: The Dukes were usually independent, but they often contracted alliances with England or France depending on who was threatening them at that point. Their support for each nation became very important during the 14th century because the English kings had started to claim the French throne. The Breton War of Succession , a local episode of the Hundred Years' War , saw the House of Blois , backed by
2409-461: The French side during the deciding stages of the war (including the battles of Patay , Formigny and Castillon and the Treaty of Arras ). Brittany importantly lost the Mad War against France in 1488, mostly because of its internal divisions that were exacerbated by the corruption at the court of Francis II, Duke of Brittany . Indeed, some rebel Breton lords were fighting on the French side. As
2482-593: The French, fighting with the House of Montfort , backed by the English. The Montforts won in 1364 and enjoyed a period of total independence until the end of the Hundred Years' War, because France was weakened and stopped sending royal envoys to the Court of Brittany. English diplomatic failures led to the Breton cavalry commanders Arthur, Comte de Richemont (later to become Arthur III, Duke of Brittany ) and his nephew Peter II, Duke of Brittany playing key roles on
2555-410: The Huns' front lines during the main battle and thwarted Attila's night assault on the Roman camp with a hail of arrows "like rain". After the battle was won, Aetius sent the Alans to Armorica and Galicia. The late 5th century Brittonic leader Riothamus received correspondence from the eminent Roman jurist Sidonius Apollinaris and was called "King of the Britons" by Jordanes . Some suggest that he
2628-446: The Roman gods. Only a small number of statues depicting Roman gods were found in Brittany, and most of the time they combine Celtic elements. During the 3rd century AD, the region was attacked several times by Franks , Alamanni and pirates. At the same time, the local economy collapsed and many farming estates were abandoned. To face the invasions, many towns and cities were fortified, like Nantes , Rennes and Vannes . This area
2701-405: The Romans first contacted coastal people in the inland region and assumed that the regional name Aremorica referred to the whole area, both coastal and inland. Pliny the Elder , in his Natural History (4.17.105), claims that Armorica was the older name for Aquitania and states Armorica's southern boundary extended to the Pyrenees . Taking into account the Gaulish origin of the name, that
2774-468: The Saxons and the region started to be called Britannia , although this name only replaced Armorica in the sixth century or perhaps by the end of the fifth. Breton-speaking people may pronounce the word Breizh in two different ways, according to their region of origin. Breton can be divided into two main dialects: the KLT ( Kerne -Leon- Tregor ) and the dialect of Vannes . KLT speakers pronounce it [brɛjs] and would write it Breiz , while
2847-420: The Vannetais speakers pronounce it [brɛχ] and would write it Breih . The official spelling is a compromise between both variants, with a z and an h together. In 1941, efforts to unify the dialects led to the creation of the so-called Breton zh , a standard which has never been widely accepted. On its side, Gallo has never had a widely accepted writing system and several ones coexist. For instance,
2920-401: The areas around Saint-Nazaire and Lorient only surrendered on 10 and 11 May 1945, several days after the German capitulation. The two port towns had been virtually destroyed by Allied air raids, like Brest and Saint-Malo , and other towns, such as Nantes and Rennes , had also suffered. In 1956, Brittany was legally reconstituted as the Region of Brittany , although the region excluded
2993-465: The capitals of the local civitates . They all had a grid plan and a forum , and sometimes a temple, a basilica , thermae or an aqueduct , like Carhaix . The Romans also built three major roads through the region. However, most of the population remained rural. The free peasants lived in small huts, whereas the landowners and their employees lived in proper villae rusticae . The Gallic deities continued to be worshiped, and were often assimilated to
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3066-580: The city hosts the Festival Films courts de Dinan, an international French-speaking film festival . In 2008, 4.97% of primary school children attended bilingual schools. Prominent people born in Dinan include: Other people associated with Dinan include: Dinan is twinned with: Brittany Brittany ( / ˈ b r ɪ t ən i / BRIT -ən-ee ; French: Bretagne , pronounced [bʁətaɲ] ; Breton : Breizh , pronounced [bʁɛjs, bʁɛx] ; Gallo : Bertaèyn or Bertègn , pronounced [bəʁtaɛɲ] )
3139-576: The civilian magistrates in the following year; Armorica too rebelled in the 430s and again in the 440s, throwing out the ruling officials, as the Romano-Britons had done. At the Battle of the Catalaunian Plains in 451 a Roman coalition led by General Flavius Aetius and the Visigothic King Theodoric I clashed violently with the Hunnic alliance commanded by King Attila the Hun . Jordanes lists Aëtius' allies as including Armoricans and other Celtic or German tribes (Getica 36.191). The "Armorican" peninsula came to be settled with Britons from Britain during
3212-424: The common Brythonic ethnonym reconstructed as *Pritanī , itself from Proto-Celtic *kʷritanoi (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *kʷer- 'to cut, make'). In Roman times, Armorica included what is now Brittany. This was an indefinite region that extended along the English Channel coast from the Seine estuary, then along the Atlantic coast to the Loire estuary and, according to several sources, maybe to
3285-428: The complicated cultural web that bound Armorica and the Britanniae (the "Britains" of Pliny) is given by Caesar when he describes Diviciacus of the Suessiones as "the most powerful ruler in the whole of Gaul, who had control not only over a large area of this region but also of Britain" Archaeological sites along the south coast of England, notably at Hengistbury Head , show connections with Armorica as far east as
3358-408: The details remain confused, these colonies consisted of related and intermarried dynasties which repeatedly unified (as by the 7th-century Saint Judicaël ) before splintering again according to Celtic inheritance practices. At the beginning of the medieval era, Brittany was divided among three kingdoms, Domnonea , Cornouaille and Broërec . These realms eventually merged into a single state during
3431-428: The dominance of the Brythonic Breton language in Armorica. Their petty kingdoms are now known by the names of the counties that succeeded them— Domnonée ( Devon ), Cornouaille ( Cornwall ), Léon ( Caerleon ); but these names in Breton and Latin are in most cases identical to their British homelands. (In Breton and French, however, Gwened or Vannetais continued the name of the indigenous Veneti .) Although
3504-425: The ducal capital of Nantes and the surrounding area . Nevertheless, Brittany retained its cultural distinctiveness, and a new cultural revival emerged during the 1960s and 1970s. Bilingual schools were opened, singers started to write songs in Breton, and ecological catastrophes such as the Amoco Cadiz oil spill or the Erika oil spill and water pollution from intensive pig farming favoured new movements to protect
3577-399: The latter to restrain its trade, and the Breton economy went into recession during the 18th century. Two significant revolts occurred in the 17th and 18th centuries: the Revolt of the papier timbré (1675) and the Pontcallec conspiracy (1719). Both arose from attempts to resist centralisation and assert Breton constitutional exceptions to tax. Many Bretons crossed the Atlantic to support
3650-716: The location of the Ambibarii is unknown. The Caletes are sometimes also considered Belgians, and Lemovices is probably a mistake for Lexovii (Lower-Normandy). During the Gallic Wars , the Veneti were defeated in the Battle of Morbihan off the coast of Brittany. At the conclusion of the Gallic Wars, the region became part of the Roman Republic in 51 BC. It was included in the province of Gallia Lugdunensis in 13 BC. Gallic towns and villages were redeveloped according to Roman standards, and several cities were created. These cities are Condate ( Rennes ), Vorgium ( Carhaix ), Darioritum ( Vannes ) and Condevincum or Condevicnum ( Nantes ). Together with Fanum Martis ( Corseul ), they were
3723-456: The name Armorica fell out of use in the area. With western Armorica having already evolved into Brittany , the east was recast from a Frankish viewpoint as the Breton March under a Frankish margrave . The home village of the fictional comic-book hero Asterix was located in Armorica during the Roman Republic ; there, "indomitable Gauls" hold out against Rome. The unnamed village was reported as having been discovered by archaeologists in
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#17327726990953796-413: The name of the region in that language can be written Bertaèyn in ELG script, or Bertègn in MOGA , and a couple of other scripts also exist. Brittany has been inhabited by humans since the Lower Palaeolithic . This population was scarce and very similar to the other Neanderthals found in the whole of Western Europe. Their only original feature was a distinct culture, called "Colombanian". One of
3869-489: The natural heritage. Brittany as a political entity disappeared in 1790, when it was divided into five départements . The Breton départements more or less correspond to the nine Catholic dioceses that appeared at the beginning of the Middle Ages. They were often called "pays" or "bro" ("country" in French and Breton ) and they also served as fiscal and military districts. Brittany is also divided between Lower Brittany ("Basse Bretagne" and "Breizh Izel"), corresponding to
3942-482: The north, Ille-et-Vilaine in the northeast, Morbihan in the south and Loire-Atlantique in the southeast. Loire-Atlantique now belongs to the Pays de la Loire region while the other four departments make up the Brittany region . At the 2010 census, the population of historic Brittany was estimated to be 4,475,295. In 2017, the largest metropolitan areas were Nantes (934,165 inhabitants), Rennes (733,320 inhabitants), and Brest (321,364 inhabitants). Brittany
4015-480: The oldest hearths in the world has been found in Plouhinec, Finistère . Homo sapiens settled in Brittany around 35,000 years ago. They replaced or absorbed the Neanderthals and developed local industries , similar to the Châtelperronian or to the Magdalenian . After the last glacial period , the warmer climate allowed the area to become heavily wooded. At that time, Brittany was populated by relatively large communities who started to change their lifestyles from
4088-531: The poorly documented period of the 5th–7th centuries. Even in distant Byzantium Procopius heard tales of migrations to the Frankish mainland from the island, largely legendary for him, of Brittia . These settlers, whether refugees or not, made the presence felt of their coherent groups in the naming of the westernmost, Atlantic-facing provinces of Armorica, Cornouaille (" Cornwall ") and Domnonea (" Devon "). These settlements are associated with leaders like Saints Samson of Dol and Pol Aurelian , among
4161-409: The river is known as the "port of Dinan", and is connected to the town by steep streets: Rue Jerzual and its continuation outside the city walls, the Rue Petit Fort. The Rance has moderate turbidity and its brownish water is somewhat low in velocity due to the very low gradient of the watercourse; pH levels have been measured at a slightly basic 8.13 within the city, and electrical conductivity of
4234-420: The same time, the Celtic Revival led to the foundation of the Breton Regionalist Union (URB) and later to independence movements linked to Irish, Welsh, and Scottish and Cornish independence parties in the UK, and to pan-Celticism . However, the audience of these movements remained very low and their ideas did not reach a large public until the 20th century. The Seiz Breur movement, created in 1923, permitted
4307-496: The same year as Alan II) and thus Brittany ceased to be a kingdom and became a duchy. Several Breton lords helped William the Conqueror to invade England and the Bretons formed over a third of the landing force in 1066. They received large estates there (e.g. William's double-second cousin Alan Rufus and the latter's brother Brian of Brittany ). The Bretons helped to liberate the Cornish, replacing Anglo-Saxon land owners. Some of these lords were powerful rivals. Medieval Brittany
4380-439: The same." According to C. E. V. Nixon , the collapse of Roman power and the depredations of the Visigoths led Armorica to act "like a magnet to peasants, coloni , slaves and the hard-pressed" who deserted other Roman territories, further weakening them. Vikings settled in the Cotentin peninsula and the lower Seine around Rouen in the ninth and early tenth centuries and, as these regions came to be known as Normandy ,
4453-408: The stem are-mori - extended by the determinative suffix - cos . It is glossed by the Latin antemarini in Endlicher's Glossary . The Slavs use a similar formation, Po-mor-jane ('those in front of the sea'), to designate the inhabitants of Pomerania . The Latin adjective Armoricani was an administrative term designating in particular a sector of the Roman defence line in Gaul in Late Antiquity ,
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#17327726990954526-433: The union between the two crowns was formally carried out by Francis I in 1532. He granted several privileges to Brittany, such as exemption from the gabelle , a tax on salt that was very unpopular in France. Under the Ancien Régime , Brittany and France were governed as separate countries but under the same crown, so Breton aristocrats in the French royal court were classed as Princes étrangers (foreign princes). From
4599-418: The waters has tested at 33 micro-siemens per centimetre. In the centre of Dinan, the Rance's summer flows are typically low, in the range of 500 cubic feet per second (14 m/s). For many years, the bridge over the river Rance at Dinan was the most northerly crossing point on the river, but the tidal power station at the mouth of the estuary, constructed in the 1960s downstream from Dinan, incorporates
4672-456: The western half, where Breton is traditionally spoken, and Upper Brittany ("Haute Bretagne" and "Breizh Uhel"), corresponding to the eastern half, where Gallo is traditionally spoken. The historical Breton dioceses were: During the French Revolution , four dioceses were suppressed and the five remaining ones were modified to have the same administrative borders as the départements . Brittany has several historical capital cities. When it
4745-446: Was a Breton, though others believe that he was from Britain, pointing to the passage that he arrived in the land of the Biturges "by way of Ocean", which would hardly have been efficient or required for a Breton. Both historians describe Riothamus's losing battle against King Euric of the Visigoths at Déols around the year 470. In response to a plea from the Roman Emperor Anthemius , Riothamus had led twelve thousand men to establish
4818-520: Was a fair amount of creation of identity in the migration period . We know that the mixed, but largely British and Frankish population of Kent repackaged themselves as ' Jutes ', and the largely British populations in the lands east of Dumnonia (Devon and Cornwall) seem to have ended up as 'West Saxons'. In western Armorica, the small élite which managed to impose an identity on the population happened to be British rather than 'Gallo-Roman' in origin, so they became Bretons. The process may have been essentially
4891-404: Was a major base for the French Navy and Nantes flourished with the Atlantic slave trade . On its side, the inland provided hemp ropes and canvas and linen sheets. However, Colbertism , which encouraged the creation of many factories, did not favour the Breton industry because most of the royal factories were opened in other provinces. Moreover, several conflicts between France and England led
4964-453: Was also affected by the Bagaudae (also spelled bacaudae) during this period, which were groups of peasant insurgents. The Bagaudae achieved some temporary and scattered successes under the leadership of peasants as well as former members of local ruling elites. Toward the end of the 4th century, the Britons of Domnonée (modern Devon and Cornwall ) on the South-Western peninsula of Great Britain began to emigrate to Armorica , which
5037-566: Was an independent duchy, the Estates of Brittany , which can be compared to a parliament, met in various towns: Dinan , Ploërmel , Redon , Rennes , Vitré , Guérande , and, most of all, Vannes , where they met 19 times, and Nantes , 17 times. The Court and the government were also very mobile, and each dynasty favoured its own castles and estates. The dukes mostly lived in Nantes , Vannes , Redon , Rennes , Fougères , Dol-de-Bretagne , Dinan and Guérande . All these towns except Vannes and Guérande are located in Upper Brittany , thus not in
5110-414: Was far from being a united nation. The French king maintained envoys in Brittany, alliances contracted by local lords often overlapped and there was no specific Breton unity. For example, Brittany replaced Latin with French as its official language in the 13th century, 300 years before France did so, and the Breton language did not have formal status. The foreign policy of the Duchy changed many times;
5183-419: Was practised in small towns such as Châteaubriant and Lochrist , known for its labour movements . The region remained deeply Catholic, and during the Second Empire , the conservative values were strongly reasserted. When the Republic was re-established in 1871, there were rumours that Breton troops were mistrusted and mistreated at Camp Conlie during the Franco-Prussian War because of fears that they were
5256-496: Was seized by the Vikings in 914. At this time Brittany was also called Lydwiccum. Nantes was eventually liberated by Alan II of Brittany in 937 with the support of his godbrother King Æthelstan of England. Alan II totally expelled the Vikings from Brittany and recreated a strong Breton state. For aiding in removing the problem, Alan paid homage to Louis IV of France (who was Æthelstan's nephew and had returned from England in
5329-650: Was supported by the Counts of Anjou, who claimed descent from a Roman soldier expelled from Lower Brittany by Conan on Magnus's orders. The army recruited for Flavius Aetius to combat Attila the Hun at the Battle of the Catalaunian Plains included Romans, Visigoths, Franks, Alans and Armoricans, amongst others. The Alans were placed front and centre, opposite the Huns. The Armoricans supplied archers who attacked
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