The northwestern corner of Gallia Comita, ‘Long-haired Gaul’, had come to be known as Armorica during the Empire. During the fifth century, while Niall Noigiallach and the Irish Scotti were making raids against the British coastal settlements, some restless Britons were also setting out on maritime adventures. Some of them crossed from Dumnonia to Armorica, and established small British settlements and enclaves. Their language, still Brythonic rather than Cornish or Welsh, would have been fairly similar to the Romanized Gallic of Armorica, but not exactly the same, nor even necessarily mutually intelligible. By AD 450, much of the territory north of the Loire was ruled by British or Breton petty kings, although many of the indigenous peoples were of Gallic stock. We know very little about this early period of Breton history.
In the fifth, sixth and seventh centuries, these small British enclaves were hugely increased in size and numbers by floods of refugees from mainland Britain, fleeing before the onslaughts of the Angles, Saxons and Jutes. In time, these waves of immigration created the separate Celtic nation of Breizh, Bretagne or Brittany, which, like Wales and Scotland, has had a long history of independence and semi-independence, and, like the other Celtic nations, still retains a strong linguistic and cultural identity to this day.
The largest, and possibly earliest, of the Breton kingdoms was Domnonia in the north, which obviously took its name direaly from the kingdom of Dunmonia in Britain. In 530, Domnonia annexed the province of Leon in the northwest, which until then had remained independent. In the Life of St. Samson of Dol, the earliest of the Breton accounts of saints’ lives, Domnonia is called Prettonaland. Prydein (early Welsh), Pretton, Breton, Bretagne and Britain are all variants of the same name. The legendary founding king of Prettonaland was Riwal, of the royal house of Gwent. Riwal could just as easily be a title or epithet as a real name: the Ri - element is probably the early Welsh for ‘king’, cognate with ri or righ in Irish.
Cornouaille, to the south of Domnonia, seems obviously to have taken its name from Cornovia or Cornwall, but the connection is actually rather difficult to prove, since neither name appears before the ninth century. Nor do we have any historical accounts of its governance or royal families before the ninth century; all we have are disconnected or episodic references in the various lives of the Breton saints.
The third of the early kingdoms was Bro Waroch (‘Waroch’s Land’), which occupied more or less the same territory as the ancient tribal area of the Veneti or Venuti, who were allies of Rome during the occupation. Waroch, who gave his name to the kingdom, was a sixth-century king or chief who defied the Franks. The Veneti were a seafaring people, who had frequent interactions with the British Celts, and it has been suggested, quite plausibly, that they may have given their name to Gwynedd. As noted in Chaper Six, the King Vortigern of history and legend mysteriously reappears in Bro Waroch as St. Gwrthiern.
The early histories of these Breton kingdoms concentrate almost exclusively on saints and saints’ lives, and it only takes a little thought to understand why. The colonists who fled from the heathen Angles, Saxons and Jutes were peace-loving Christians, whose natural leaders were the clerics, scholars and physical as well as spiritual guides for their journeys. It seems likely that there was no great military resistance to their settling in large numbers, partly because of the longstanding Armorican connections with the British mainland, but also because the newcomers appear to have been content with poor heathland and virgin forest for their settling grounds, which again is consistent with the notion of people united by faith rather than by tribal allegiance or territorial ambition. Saint Meen, for example, is said to have come from
Archenfield in southeastern Wales, and to have established a monastery in the Forest of Broceliande in the eastern part of Brittany. Meen was of royal stock in Wales, and maintained a close friendship throughout his life with King Judicael of Domnonia, but his story is not one of conquest, or of royal intrigue, but rather of the establishment of a small monastery deep in the heart of the forest, away from the affairs of men. The patron saint of my home town of Camborne in Cornwall is St. Meryasek or Meriadoc, reputedly a Welshman who also lived and worked as a bishop in Brittany, where there is still a community named after him. The Life of St. Malo describes how the saint found a golden statue of a ram while he was clearing the land, and took it to the court of King Childebert asking for its value and for tenure, which the Frankish (French) king granted. All of these tales reinforce the notion that, while the original British and Welsh stock from which the Breton settlers came may have had very traditional Celtic patterns of kingship and tribal governance, the settlers themselves were led differently, and conducted their affairs with men of learning as their representatives, closer in style to the model of druidic leadership.
The earliest Breton king for whom we have any significant historical evidence is the sixth-century King Cunomor or Cunomorus of Pou-Castel. The name has two Celtic elements: C««-, which means ‘dog’ or ‘hound’, and -mor, which could mean ‘of the sea’ but is more likely to mean ‘great’. The same name is found on a stone inscription in Cornwall, which suggests that it may have been a common royal name. Cunomor’s original stronghold was Pou-Castel (modern Carhaix), in Poher, from which he cast his net wider and ended up ruling the whole kingdom of Domnonia, as well as Poher and Leon, from approximately 540 to 554. The Breton histories portray him as a usurper and tyrant, and rejoice in his death, reportedly at the hands of his own people in his native Poher.
When the Frankish or Merovingian kings came to power in Gaul, leading eventually to the formation of the country named after them, France, they resented Breton claims of independence. They refused to allow any of the Breton kings to use the ancient title rix or king; instead, they insisted that each should use the term conte or count, which they used for their provincial officials. The Breton kings resisted. Notable among them was King Waroch, who gave his name to Bro Waroch, mentioned above. In 587 he invaded Nantes, and in 590 a Frankish army was defeated by his son Canao.
The Breton chiefs maintained their struggle for independence for another three hundred years, defying even the mighty Charlemagne, who sent no less than three full expeditions to suppress them. By the middle of the ninth century, however, the French hegemony was too powerful to resist any longer. Salomon, son of Erispoe, paid homage to Charles the Bald of the Franks, and was executed in 874 when he tried to renege on his oath of loyalty. It was the last attempt at formal Breton independence. Informally, however, Brittany has maintained a cultural and linguistic independence to this
Day, and there are still aspirations for some measure of political independence. These were greatly strengthened in recent historical times by the vindictive practice of the sabot - a teacher tying a clog around the neck of a child heard speaking lowly Breton instead of polite French in school - and the equally volatile question of young Bretons resisting conscription into the French army and receiving long gaol sentences for their refusal.
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