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EspañolDUKE OF BRITTANY
(Redirected from Duchy of Brittany)
The 'Duchy of Brittany' (Breton: ''Dugelezh Vreizh'', French: ''Duché de Bretagne'') was a medieval tribal and feudal state covering the Armorican peninsula west of Mont-Saint-Michel and north of Nantes/Naoned, excluding Rennes/Roazhon and including Vannes/Gwened. It largely corresponded to the French region called Bretagne, historic Brittany, a region with strong traditions of independence, including a distinctive culture and the Breton language.
The incorporation of Brittany into the Carolingian empire ensured that the political and social institutions were similar to those prevailing elsewhere in western Francia. Until the 10th century, Brittany was severely affected by Viking attacks and ducal authority was weak. Dynastic disputes caused the political fragmentation of the duchy into counties and authority suffered even further from the pressures of resisting claims by both the dukes of Normandy and the counts of Anjou. This process of fragmentation was halted and reversed from the mid-eleventh century, when intermarriage resulted in the ducal title vesting in a single individual, Duke Alan IV Fergent.
Alan's long and stable reign included expansion of Breton holdings by King William I of England conferring upon him the Honour of Richmond, after the Norman Conquest of England. His son Conan III also saw progress in the revival of central authority. A succession dispute following Conan's death undid the duke's achievements and allowed Henry II of England, to claim overlordship. Between 1158 and 1166, Henry II annexed Brittany to his continental holdings, marrying his third son, Geoffrey, to Constance, heiress of the duchy. The Angevin Empire in Brittany came to an end in 1203, after King John of England murdered his nephew, Arthur, the son of Geoffrey and Constance.
The marriage of the infant Alice to Capetian cadet Peter of Dreux in 1213, began the new House of Dreux. This allowed Brittany a measure of autonomy again, although continuously giving lip service to Capetian sovereignty. 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. A disoriented and shut out Brittany became royally subsumed into France, during a tapering reign of the Montfort house. In 1465 Duke Francis II took Penthievre from its Blois-descended countess, Nicole de Bretagne-Blois - thus undermining the Penthievre family's position in the country. In 1488, at the death of the last male duke Francis II, the head of the Penthievre family was Jean de Brosse (died 1502), grandson of Nicole de Blois the aforementioned, and he asserted their claim to the duchy, but Francis' daughter Anne however succeeded. Duchess Anne of Brittany was first attempted to get married to Habsburgs, in order to avoid French central government's yoke, but she found herself instead married in turn to two kings of France. Her daughter Claude, duchess from 1514, was married to king Francis, and was not able to keep any independent government. Claude's son Francis III was invested as duke, but this meant next to nothing to Breton independence. Some members of the Brosse family were appointed as royal governors of Brittany by the French. Francis III's death made his brother Henri the last titular duke of Brittany, despite he where not crowned. When he ascended the French throne, the duchy became regarded as merged in the crown. The view enjoyed no undivided support, as many Bretons would have liked higher autonomy and other European royal houses woulsd have liked to weaken France in its own borders. Thus, when Henry III of France, the last male-line descendant of Claude died in 1589, his theoretical heirs in Brittany and Auvergne were Infanta Isabella Clara Eugenia, the later Spanish ruler of Low Countries, and Henry I, Duke of Lorraine (the former was eldest daughter of the late eldest sister of Henry III but female, the latter was male but son of younger sister; Brittany had a unlogical tradition of giving some -but not all- precedence to male heirs even in cases he also descended through female). Philip II of Spain, leading enemy of France, offered either of them to divide as much of France between them as could be taken. Regarding Brittany, nothing come from this. Instead, Philippe Emmanuel, Duke of Mercoeur, a leader of Catholic League, whom king Henry III had in 1582 made royal governor of Brittany, ruled Brittany in name of his own underage son Philippe Louis de Lorraine-Mercoeur who through maternal ancestry was the direct primogenitural heir of Duchess Joanna the Lame, that of the Penthievre branch, wife of Charles the Lame of Blois. Mercoeur organized a government at Nantes, supported by the Spaniards. It took several years until in 1598 the Mercoeur government surrendered in 1598 to Henry IV of France who had one of his own bastards to marry the young daughter of the Mercoeurs, and confirmed the direct French control of the province.
==Richmondshire, part of Brittany and latterly of Great Britain==
Richmondshire was often held by Breton dukes themselves or their secundogeniture during the Middle Ages. There was also a rift in the political ambitions of 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 became partisan with the House of Lancaster under the Tudor earls, themselves supported by the Duke of Brittany. Parting between Nantes and Richmond was amicable (Arthur de Richemont) and unofficial for the span of a century (Henry FitzRoy quartered ermine in his arms), or more (Ludovic Stewart was originally a mere ''Earl'', not ''Duke'' of Richmond).
Richmond became a dukedom in its own right; the Duchy of Brittany and Kingdom of Navarre were being united with France as the Principality of Wales and Kingdom of Scotland were uniting with England. The present holder of Richmond owes the honorific title Duke of Aubigny (after Aubigny-sur-Nère in Berry), in descent from Breton Louise de Kérouaille, Duchess of Portsmouth. This new relation was connected to the Auld Alliance, Breton roots in the House of Stuart, reactionary recusancy as found in Richmondshire and also Lennox near Glasgow. Catholic connections continued with the addition of Jacobite Clan Gordon's property in the Scottish Highlands to this circle and the present Duke of Richmond is also Duke of Gordon.
★ Morman (r.814–818)
★ Wihomarc (r.822–825)
★ Nominoe (or ''Nevenoe'') (r.841–851), as a ''missus dominicus'' of the Emperor Louis the Pious, a count of Vannes (Gwened) and a duke (''dux'') of Brittany
★ Erispoe (r.851–857), as a duke, then as a king
★ Salomon (or ''Salaun'') (r.857–874), as a duke, then a king
★ Pasquitan of Vannes (or ''Paskweten'') (r.874–877), ruling Brittany with Gurvand
★ Gurvand of Rennes (r.874–877), ruling Brittany with Pasquitan
★ Judicael of Rennes (r.877–888), successor of Gurvand, ruled Brittany with Alan the Great
★ Alan the Great (reigned from 877 to 888 with Judicaël, alone as a duke, then as a king up to 907)
★ Gourmaelon, earl of Cornwall (reigned from 907 as a gardian of the kingdom)
The succession was interrupted by the Norman occupation (907–937)
===Nantes/Naoned===
★ Alan II Wrybeard (reigned as a duke from 937 to 952)
★ Drogo, son (reigned from 952 to 958)
★ Hoel I, brother (reigned from 960–981 as a duke, but controlled only the county of Nantes/Naoned)
★ Guerech, brother (reigned from 981–988 as a duke, but controlled only the county of Nantes/Naoned)
===Rennes/Roazhon===
★ Conan I of Rennes (r.958–992) earl of Rennes/Roazhon, then ruling all Brittany (if not Nantes/Naoned) as a duke (990–992)
★ Geoffrey I (r.992–1008)
★ Alan III (r.1008–1040)
★ Conan II (r.1040–1066)
===Cornouaille/Kernev===
★ Hoel II of Cornouaille/Hoel Huuel (r.1066–1084), married Hawisa, daughter of Alan III
★ Alan IV Fergant (r.1084–1112)
★ Conan III the Fat (r.1112–1148)
★ Eon I of Porhoet (r.1148–1156), married Bertha, daughter of Conan III, co-ruled with Hoel III
★ Hoel III, son of Conan III, co-ruled with Eon I
===Penthievre/Penteur===
★ Conan IV the Younger, son of Bertha and Alan the Black, Earl of Penthièvre, 1st Earl of Richmond. (r.1156–1168), deposed, †1171
===Plantagenet===
★ Geoffrey Plantagenet (r.1166–1186), married Constance, daughter of Conan IV
★ Constance, daughter of Conan IV, (r.1186–1201)
★ Arthur I Plantagenet (r.1196–1203)
===Thouars===
★ Guy of Thouars (r.1203–1206)
★ Alix of Thouars, daughter of Constance and Guy of Thouars, (r.1206–1221)
===Dreux===
★ Peter I Mauclerc of Dreux (r.1213–1237) ''in right of his wife Alix and as regent of his son''
★ John I, the Red (r.1237–1286)
★ John II (r.1286–1305)
★ Arthur II (r.1305–1316)
★ John III, the Good (r.1312–1341)
;Breton War of Succession (1341–1364)
★ Charles of Blois and Joanna of Penthièvre (r.1341–1364)
★
★ ''vs. Dukes John IV and John V'', see below
===Montfort===
The cadet branch of the House of Dreux
★ John of Montfort (r.1341–1345) in rivalry to the aforementioned
★ John IV, the Conqueror (r.1364–1399) until 1365 in rivalry to the aforementioned
★ John V (r.1399–1442)
★ Francis I (r.1442–1450)
★ Peter II (r.1450–1457)
★ Arthur III (r.1457–1458)
★ Francis II (r.1458–1488)
★ Anne of Brittany (r.1488–1514)
★ Claudia of France (r.1514–1524)
★ Francis III (r.1524–1536), son of Francis I of France and Claudia of France
★ Henri was from 1536 Duke of Brittany, and when he succeeded in the royal throne of France 1547 as king Henri II, Brittany was united to France
The annexation of Brittany was not uncontested by the subsequent Counts and dukes of Penthièvre:
★ the senior claim, that of Joan of Penthievre and of the Mercoeur, went through Bourbon-Vendome (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 and 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 1724 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. 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).
★ Château des ducs de Bretagne
★ Brittany
★ Dukes of Brittany family tree
★ Genealogy of the Dukes of Brittany
The 'Duchy of Brittany' (Breton: ''Dugelezh Vreizh'', French: ''Duché de Bretagne'') was a medieval tribal and feudal state covering the Armorican peninsula west of Mont-Saint-Michel and north of Nantes/Naoned, excluding Rennes/Roazhon and including Vannes/Gwened. It largely corresponded to the French region called Bretagne, historic Brittany, a region with strong traditions of independence, including a distinctive culture and the Breton language.
The incorporation of Brittany into the Carolingian empire ensured that the political and social institutions were similar to those prevailing elsewhere in western Francia. Until the 10th century, Brittany was severely affected by Viking attacks and ducal authority was weak. Dynastic disputes caused the political fragmentation of the duchy into counties and authority suffered even further from the pressures of resisting claims by both the dukes of Normandy and the counts of Anjou. This process of fragmentation was halted and reversed from the mid-eleventh century, when intermarriage resulted in the ducal title vesting in a single individual, Duke Alan IV Fergent.
Alan's long and stable reign included expansion of Breton holdings by King William I of England conferring upon him the Honour of Richmond, after the Norman Conquest of England. His son Conan III also saw progress in the revival of central authority. A succession dispute following Conan's death undid the duke's achievements and allowed Henry II of England, to claim overlordship. Between 1158 and 1166, Henry II annexed Brittany to his continental holdings, marrying his third son, Geoffrey, to Constance, heiress of the duchy. The Angevin Empire in Brittany came to an end in 1203, after King John of England murdered his nephew, Arthur, the son of Geoffrey and Constance.
The marriage of the infant Alice to Capetian cadet Peter of Dreux in 1213, began the new House of Dreux. This allowed Brittany a measure of autonomy again, although continuously giving lip service to Capetian sovereignty. 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. A disoriented and shut out Brittany became royally subsumed into France, during a tapering reign of the Montfort house. In 1465 Duke Francis II took Penthievre from its Blois-descended countess, Nicole de Bretagne-Blois - thus undermining the Penthievre family's position in the country. In 1488, at the death of the last male duke Francis II, the head of the Penthievre family was Jean de Brosse (died 1502), grandson of Nicole de Blois the aforementioned, and he asserted their claim to the duchy, but Francis' daughter Anne however succeeded. Duchess Anne of Brittany was first attempted to get married to Habsburgs, in order to avoid French central government's yoke, but she found herself instead married in turn to two kings of France. Her daughter Claude, duchess from 1514, was married to king Francis, and was not able to keep any independent government. Claude's son Francis III was invested as duke, but this meant next to nothing to Breton independence. Some members of the Brosse family were appointed as royal governors of Brittany by the French. Francis III's death made his brother Henri the last titular duke of Brittany, despite he where not crowned. When he ascended the French throne, the duchy became regarded as merged in the crown. The view enjoyed no undivided support, as many Bretons would have liked higher autonomy and other European royal houses woulsd have liked to weaken France in its own borders. Thus, when Henry III of France, the last male-line descendant of Claude died in 1589, his theoretical heirs in Brittany and Auvergne were Infanta Isabella Clara Eugenia, the later Spanish ruler of Low Countries, and Henry I, Duke of Lorraine (the former was eldest daughter of the late eldest sister of Henry III but female, the latter was male but son of younger sister; Brittany had a unlogical tradition of giving some -but not all- precedence to male heirs even in cases he also descended through female). Philip II of Spain, leading enemy of France, offered either of them to divide as much of France between them as could be taken. Regarding Brittany, nothing come from this. Instead, Philippe Emmanuel, Duke of Mercoeur, a leader of Catholic League, whom king Henry III had in 1582 made royal governor of Brittany, ruled Brittany in name of his own underage son Philippe Louis de Lorraine-Mercoeur who through maternal ancestry was the direct primogenitural heir of Duchess Joanna the Lame, that of the Penthievre branch, wife of Charles the Lame of Blois. Mercoeur organized a government at Nantes, supported by the Spaniards. It took several years until in 1598 the Mercoeur government surrendered in 1598 to Henry IV of France who had one of his own bastards to marry the young daughter of the Mercoeurs, and confirmed the direct French control of the province.
==Richmondshire, part of Brittany and latterly of Great Britain==
Richmondshire was often held by Breton dukes themselves or their secundogeniture during the Middle Ages. There was also a rift in the political ambitions of 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 became partisan with the House of Lancaster under the Tudor earls, themselves supported by the Duke of Brittany. Parting between Nantes and Richmond was amicable (Arthur de Richemont) and unofficial for the span of a century (Henry FitzRoy quartered ermine in his arms), or more (Ludovic Stewart was originally a mere ''Earl'', not ''Duke'' of Richmond).
Richmond became a dukedom in its own right; the Duchy of Brittany and Kingdom of Navarre were being united with France as the Principality of Wales and Kingdom of Scotland were uniting with England. The present holder of Richmond owes the honorific title Duke of Aubigny (after Aubigny-sur-Nère in Berry), in descent from Breton Louise de Kérouaille, Duchess of Portsmouth. This new relation was connected to the Auld Alliance, Breton roots in the House of Stuart, reactionary recusancy as found in Richmondshire and also Lennox near Glasgow. Catholic connections continued with the addition of Jacobite Clan Gordon's property in the Scottish Highlands to this circle and the present Duke of Richmond is also Duke of Gordon.
| Contents |
| Kings and Dukes of Brittany |
| Princes of the Bretons |
| Penthièvre |
| Bourbon |
| See also |
| External link |
Kings and Dukes of Brittany
Princes of the Bretons
★ Morman (r.814–818)
★ Wihomarc (r.822–825)
★ Nominoe (or ''Nevenoe'') (r.841–851), as a ''missus dominicus'' of the Emperor Louis the Pious, a count of Vannes (Gwened) and a duke (''dux'') of Brittany
★ Erispoe (r.851–857), as a duke, then as a king
★ Salomon (or ''Salaun'') (r.857–874), as a duke, then a king
★ Pasquitan of Vannes (or ''Paskweten'') (r.874–877), ruling Brittany with Gurvand
★ Gurvand of Rennes (r.874–877), ruling Brittany with Pasquitan
★ Judicael of Rennes (r.877–888), successor of Gurvand, ruled Brittany with Alan the Great
★ Alan the Great (reigned from 877 to 888 with Judicaël, alone as a duke, then as a king up to 907)
★ Gourmaelon, earl of Cornwall (reigned from 907 as a gardian of the kingdom)
The succession was interrupted by the Norman occupation (907–937)
===Nantes/Naoned===
★ Alan II Wrybeard (reigned as a duke from 937 to 952)
★ Drogo, son (reigned from 952 to 958)
★ Hoel I, brother (reigned from 960–981 as a duke, but controlled only the county of Nantes/Naoned)
★ Guerech, brother (reigned from 981–988 as a duke, but controlled only the county of Nantes/Naoned)
===Rennes/Roazhon===
★ Conan I of Rennes (r.958–992) earl of Rennes/Roazhon, then ruling all Brittany (if not Nantes/Naoned) as a duke (990–992)
★ Geoffrey I (r.992–1008)
★ Alan III (r.1008–1040)
★ Conan II (r.1040–1066)
===Cornouaille/Kernev===
★ Hoel II of Cornouaille/Hoel Huuel (r.1066–1084), married Hawisa, daughter of Alan III
★ Alan IV Fergant (r.1084–1112)
★ Conan III the Fat (r.1112–1148)
★ Eon I of Porhoet (r.1148–1156), married Bertha, daughter of Conan III, co-ruled with Hoel III
★ Hoel III, son of Conan III, co-ruled with Eon I
===Penthievre/Penteur===
★ Conan IV the Younger, son of Bertha and Alan the Black, Earl of Penthièvre, 1st Earl of Richmond. (r.1156–1168), deposed, †1171
===Plantagenet===
★ Geoffrey Plantagenet (r.1166–1186), married Constance, daughter of Conan IV
★ Constance, daughter of Conan IV, (r.1186–1201)
★ Arthur I Plantagenet (r.1196–1203)
===Thouars===
★ Guy of Thouars (r.1203–1206)
★ Alix of Thouars, daughter of Constance and Guy of Thouars, (r.1206–1221)
===Dreux===
★ Peter I Mauclerc of Dreux (r.1213–1237) ''in right of his wife Alix and as regent of his son''
★ John I, the Red (r.1237–1286)
★ John II (r.1286–1305)
★ Arthur II (r.1305–1316)
★ John III, the Good (r.1312–1341)
;Breton War of Succession (1341–1364)
★ Charles of Blois and Joanna of Penthièvre (r.1341–1364)
★
★ ''vs. Dukes John IV and John V'', see below
===Montfort===
The cadet branch of the House of Dreux
★ John of Montfort (r.1341–1345) in rivalry to the aforementioned
★ John IV, the Conqueror (r.1364–1399) until 1365 in rivalry to the aforementioned
★ John V (r.1399–1442)
★ Francis I (r.1442–1450)
★ Peter II (r.1450–1457)
★ Arthur III (r.1457–1458)
★ Francis II (r.1458–1488)
★ Anne of Brittany (r.1488–1514)
★ Claudia of France (r.1514–1524)
★ Francis III (r.1524–1536), son of Francis I of France and Claudia of France
★ Henri was from 1536 Duke of Brittany, and when he succeeded in the royal throne of France 1547 as king Henri II, Brittany was united to France
Penthièvre
The annexation of Brittany was not uncontested by the subsequent Counts and dukes of Penthièvre:
★ the senior claim, that of Joan of Penthievre and of the Mercoeur, went through Bourbon-Vendome (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 and 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 1724 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.
Bourbon
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. 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).
See also
★ Château des ducs de Bretagne
★ Brittany
★ Dukes of Brittany family tree
External link
★ Genealogy of the Dukes of Brittany
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