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‘A holy nation, a peculiar people’:
Religion, Region and Nation in late-medieval Brittany.
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Contents
1. Introduction
1
2. The French Connection
7
3. The Role of Indigenous Traditions
17
4. Reception and Response
25
5. Conclusion: A Modest Proposal
35
Appendix I: Images
39
Appendix II: Source Material in French
53
Bibliography
59
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1. Introduction
Political expression in the Duchy of Brittany in the final centuries of the Middle
Ages was characterised by a conscious and persistent struggle between
various political powers to manipulate religious imagery and discourse in
order to cultivate the allegiance of a broad spectrum of society to a particular
dynasty. Dukes, kings and their supporters commissioned works written in
French, particularly historical narratives, which underlined the sanctity of a
particular family or highlighted the role of divine providence in a dynasty’s
ascent to power.1 Writers even went so far as to attach a deep religious
significance to the omnipresent heraldic emblems of the late Middle Ages,
such as the French fleur de lys or the Breton ermine. The concepts of
vernacular writing were then disseminated even more widely by their depiction
in the visual arts, not only in illuminated manuscripts, but also in frescoes,
statues and stained-glass windows. The similarity of certain depictions of the
Breton dukes to the Wilton Diptych, a prime example of the appropriation of
religious symbolism to support secular power in late-medieval England, is
particularly striking [Fig. 1.1 and Fig. 1.2].2 Since the inhabitants of Brittany in
the fifteenth century, whether they identified as Breton, French, both, or
neither, would have primarily thought of themselves as Christians, the
imagery and language of Christianity provided a particularly effective means
of promoting loyalty.3
In the summer of 1471, for example, Jean Meschinot, the court poet of
François II of Brittany (1458-88), recited a ballade he had written for the
Duke’s second marriage, welcoming the future Duchess:
1
For a comprehensive survey see J. Balcou and Y. Le Gallo (eds.), Histoire Littéraire et
Culturelle de la Bretagne: Vol. I (Paris, 1987), pp. 105-119 and 245-271.
2
J. M. Theilmann, ‘Political Canonization and Political Symbolism in Medieval England’,
Journal of British Studies, 29 3 (1990), pp. 259-261. For images see Appendix I.
3
G. Minois, Histoire Religieuse de la Bretagne (Saint-Brieuc, 1991), p. 47.
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‘Rich country and most fortunate land,
Which, as all clearly see, is beloved of God,
A Duchy without equal, most prosperous Brittany.’4
Meschinot did not compose this poem, known to literary historians as
the Ballade for the Arrival of the Duchess of Foix in Brittany, in the narrow,
private context that this retrospective title might suggest. His rhetoric was
tailored to a wide audience, including nobles and merchants, who had
gathered in Nantes to mark this marriage, a political alliance between the
autonomous principalities of Brittany and Béarn, both eager to maintain their
independence from France.5 In the early 1470s Meschinot’s patron was in a
precarious political position. Still without a male heir, which only aggravated
his problems, the François’s chief internal rival, Viscount Jean II of Rohan
(1462-1516), was seeking political support at the court of King Louis XI (14611483), the deceitful king of Meschinot’s political ballads, who seemed intent
upon definitively extending royal power into Brittany.6 In this particular poem
then, Meschinot specifically emphasised the divine favour given to Brittany in
order to promote unity behind the Duke in an increasingly instable time.
Despite the abundance of religious reference in the political poems of
the most celebrated medieval Breton poet, the spiritual aspect of identity in
late-medieval Brittany has, for the most part, evaded comment. Recent
scholarship, dominated by Michael Jones and Jean Kerhervé, has tended to
underline the temporal concerns of Jean IV (1345-99) and his successors,
much to the detriment of the sacred imagery that permeates the sources. 7
The growing use, from the mid-fourteenth century, of the formula, ‘Duke by
Quoted in C. Martineau-Génieys, ‘Introduction’, in J. Meschinot, Les Lunettes des Princes
(Geneva, 1972), p. xxiii.
5
Ibid., p. xxxi.
6 Ibid., p. xliii; A. de La Borderie, ‘Jean Meschinot, Sa vie et ses œuvres’, Bibliothèque de
l’école des chartes, 56 (1895), pp. 287-303.
7 M. Jones, ‘"Mon pays et ma nation”: Breton Identity in the Fourteenth Century’, in C. T.
Allamand (ed.), War, Literature and Politics in the Late Middle Ages (Liverpool, 1976), pp. 5877; J. Kerhervé, ‘Entre conscience nationale et identité régionale dans la Bretagne de la fin
du Moyen Âge’, in R. Babel and J.-M. Moelin (eds.), Identité régionale et conscience
nationale en France et en Allemagne du Moyen Âge à l’époque moderne (Paris, 1997), pp.
219-43.
4
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the grace of God’, on ducal coins and seals has received much attention as a
challenge to French royal power, but few have commented on the theological
implications of this principle.8 Furthermore, although many have noted the
political connotations of the gradual replacement of the cercle ducal with a
royal crown in this period, nobody has commented on the widespread
depiction of a crown supported by angels in Breton illuminated manuscripts
[Fig. 1.3 and Fig. 1.4].9 Finally, whereas historians have thoroughly
scrutinised the account of the Trojan origins of the Bretons in the anonymous
Cronicon Briocense and Bouchart’s Grandes Croniques de Bretagne, they
have neglected to examine the narratives of the Bretons’ conversion to
Christianity.10 Only when these concepts and others besides have received
careful attention can an accurate image of Breton identity in the late Middle
Ages emerge.
Unfortunately, on one of the few occasions when it has been deemed
necessary to comment of the religious aspects of identity in late-medieval
Brittany, an eminent medievalist has been just as guilty as a recent popular
historian in resorting to the hackneyed preconception of, ‘The profoundly
religious spirit of Breton Catholics’.11 Besides being a post-Revolutionary
caricature of the inhabitants of a modern-day région whose borders have no
relation to the medieval Duchy, this stereotype completely overlooks the
fundamental nature of identity in the medieval period. 12 Yet this is by no
means the only anachronism to have plagued the study of identities in latemedieval Brittany. Several writers, expecting to uncover a Montfortist
equivalent to Saint Denis, have expressed their surprise at the scarcity of
M. Jones, ‘The Seals of John IV, Duke of Brittany, 1364-1399’, Antiquaries Journal, 22
(1975), p. 371; Y. Coativy, La Monnaie des ducs de Bretagne de l’an mil à 1499 (Rennes,
2006), p. 310.
9 M. Jones, ‘“En son habit royal”: Le Duc de Bretagne et son image vers la fin du Moyen Âge’,
in J. Blanchard (ed.), Représentation, povoir et royauté à la fin du Moyen-Age (Paris, 1995),
p. 263; D’A. J. D. Boulton, ‘The Order of the Golden Fleece and the Creation of Burgundian
National Identity’, in D’A. J. D. and J. R. Veenstra (eds.), The Ideology of Burgundy: The
promotion of national consciousness, 1364-1565 (Boston, 2006), pp. 21-97.
10
Kerhervé, ‘Entre conscience nationale et identité régionale’, pp. 230-231; S. Reynolds
‘Medieval Origines Gentium and the Community of the Realm’, History, 68 (1983), pp. 389-90.
11 J. Le Goff, ‘Préface’, in C. Prigent, Pouvoir Ducal, Religion et Production Artistique en
Basse-Bretagne: 1350-1575 (Paris, 1992), p. 9; G. Robb, The Discovery of France (London,
2007), p. 130.
12 S. Reynolds, Kingdoms and Communities in Western Europe, 900-1300 (Oxford, 1997), p.
254.
8
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references to Saint Yves de Kermartin, the current patron saint of Brittany, in
the propagandist writings of ducal historians.13 Indeed, after an account of the
canonisation, Bouchart mentions this saint primarily in brief exclamations. 14
This comes as no surprise to anyone familiar with iconography; in the years
immediately following his canonisation in 1347, artists represented Yves as a
lawyer with books in his hands, not as a Breton with an ermine at his side. It is
time that the sources are approached in their own context, free of modern
preconceptions.
This dissertation will reinstate the fundamental importance of
Christianity in the various attempts at cultivating a national sentiment in latemedieval Brittany and examine how different dynasties competed for the
allegiance of the Breton people. The first chapter will focus upon the
relationship between Breton writings and a highly developed French royal
ideology that was consciously directed at justifying royal encroachment upon
the principalities.15 In many senses the Breton chronicles can be read as both
an imitation and direct rebuttal of French claims. The very name of Alain
Bouchart’s Grands Croniques de Bretagne imitates the title of the main
French vernacular chronicle tradition, Les Grands Chroniques de France,
which was well known amongst the Breton nobility. Every individual claim of
the French seemed to have a direct rebuttal. Whereas King Louis IX (122670) had, much to the annoyance of his hagiographers, only been placed
amongst the confessors at his canonisation, the Bretons had gone one further
with King Salomon (857-878), who was venerated in both Brittany and in
France as a martyr, the highest level of sainthood.16 Yet, with the warm
reception of the dauphin into several Breton towns, including Chateaubriant
and Rennes, in the 1460s, and the images on the royal coinage that circulated
Y. Coativy, ‘Saint Yves dans les chroniques bretonnes de la fin du Moyen Âge’, in J.-C.
Cassard and G. Provost (eds.), Saint Yves et les Bretons: Culte, Images, Mémoire (13032003 (Rennes, 2004), pp. 61-66.
14 A. Bouchart, Grandes croniques de Bretagne: Tome II, (ed.) M.-L. Auger, (Paris, 1998), pp.
53 and 207.
15
J. R. Strayer, ‘The Holy Land, The Chosen People and The Most Christian King’, in T. K.
Rabb and J. E. Siegel (eds.), Action and Conviction in Early Modern Europe (Princeton,
1969), pp. 3-16.
16 J. de Joinville, La vie de Saint Louis, (ed.) J. Monfrin, (Paris, 1998), p. 4; A. Bouchart,
Grandes croniques de Bretagne: Tome I, (ed.) M.-L. Auger, (Paris, 1998), pp. 340-341.
13
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alongside the dukes’ own money, the so-called royal ideology was pervasive
throughout Brittany in the fifteenth century and continued to exert a significant
appeal.
Yet, in order to have a wide social reach, the Montfortist ideology
developed on one level that was impossible for the French to manipulate. The
second chapter will analyse how the ideology of the chronicles of Brittany
focused on the links between the dukes and the insular religious traditions of
the peninsula they ruled. By reading themselves back into the practices of
their subjects, the dukes were particularly likely to encourage the people to
identify directly with their dynasty. The long-standing, traditional belief in the
migration of the Bretons from the island of Great Britain was transformed into
a pseudo-crusade, with the pious, Christian Bretons crossing the channel to
conquer a land chosen for them by God and conquer a pagan people,
centuries before Clovis (466-511) was crowned King of France. Writers
singled out characters that were not only significant in late-medieval Breton
culture, but who were charged with a particular emotional significance. Hence,
the legendary King Arthur is described in the anonymous Chronicon
Briocense receiving the ducal coat of arms from the Virgin Mary, whose cult
was flourishing in Brittany in the period, and the role of Saint Salomon, a stock
character of the chansons des gestes and an important figure of the religious
calendar, is highlighted in all the written texts.17
At this point, however, we are faced with the particularly thorny
question of the reception of the Breton ideology. Alongside looking at how
some families demonstrated their allegiance to the dukes, the third chapter
will examine how the upper nobility, the Counts of Rohan, Penthièvre and
Laval in particular, actually turned the Montfortist ideology against the dukes;
their reception of the texts and images of the Montfortist dynasty was
characterised by imitation. In a sense, the commissioning of genealogies and
sacred images this involved tied in with a tendency that was widespread
A. de La Borderie, ‘Salomon, roi de Bretagne, dans les chansons de geste’, Revue de
Bretagne de Vendée et d’Anjou, 36 (1892), pp. 395-408; J. Bédier, Les Légendes Épiques:
Recherches sur la formation des chansons de geste, Vol IV (Paris, 1921), pp. 105-116.
17
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amongst the entire European nobility.18 Yet, in the Breton context, the conflict
between the Valois and the Montfortists to monopolise the imagery of religion
was opened up to a second front. In a salient parallel with the instability that
characterised Breton politics in this period, the upper nobility directly intended
to undermine the legitimacy of the Montfortist dynasty by demonstrating their
own connections with the holy, hence legitimising their claims to the throne
and the new royal titles they began to claim for themselves.19 The
Montfortists, in turn, had to respond to these challenges, undermining the
pretentions of their political rivals whist asserting their own superiority.
18
G. Klaniczay, Holy Rulers and Blessed Princes: Dynastic Cults in Medieval Central Europe
(Cambridge, 2002), p. 367.
19 A.-Y. Bourgès, ‘Archéologie du Mythe: hagiographie de Bas Moyen Age et origines
fabuleuses de quelques lignages de la noblesse bretonne’, Kreiz: Études de la Bretagne et
les pays celtiques, 4 (1995), pp. 5-28.
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2. The French Connection
No one can doubt that late-medieval Bretons were aware of the French royal
ideology, the so-called ‘religion of kingship’. Indeed, the French monarchy, as
part of its larger programme of territorial expansion, had been encroaching
upon the independence of the Duchy of Brittany for several centuries.
Although the dukes had a monopoly on the mint, royal coinage bearing the
image of the ‘Most-Christian King’ had circulated in Brittany since the reign of
Phillip the Fair (1285-1314). In later years the unsuccessful claimant to the
ducal throne, Charles de Blois (1341-64), promoted some of the dynastic cults
of the Kings of France. Charles was motivated not only by his dynastic
connections with Saint Louis and Louis of Anjou, but also by the enthusiastic
support he received from the French in the War of Succession (1341-1364);
he fought under the oriflamme as well as the hermine. The attraction that the
Paris-based monarchy still held on the people of Brittany is testified by the
dangerous journey many made, covering hundreds of miles from their remote
Duchy to the French capital, to be cured of scrofula by the miraculous touch of
the Christ-like kings of France.20 The town of Saint-Malo, on the northern
coast of the peninsula, even declared itself a commune, rejecting its bond with
the Duke in favour of the direct lordship of the French kings.21
Nevertheless, French propaganda went much further than simply
offering an alternative to the rule of the dukes. Following the victory of the
Montfortist dynasty over the House of Blois in the Breton War of Succession,
French writers began to deliberately attack the legitimacy of Jean IV and his
successors, by denouncing them as bastards. This provided a stark contrast
with the alleged sanctity of the French lineage, which they traced back to
Saint Clovis. In his Chroniques, one of the most widely copied and
disseminated written works of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, Jean
Froissart mentions how the French avoided referring to Jean IV’s father as the
Duke of Brittany, preferring the less illustrious title ‘Count of Montfort’, whilst
misleadingly stating that Jean’s ancestors ‘had never been Dukes of
20
M. Bloch, The Royal Touch (New York, 1981), p. 62.
M. Jones, ‘The rituals and significance of ducal civic entries in late medieval Brittany’,
Journal of Medieval History, 29 (2003), p. 294.
21
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Brittany’.22 In the oral tradition, with an even wider potential audience, a
chanson de geste called Dieudonné de Hongrie presented Montfort as little
better than a pretender who betrayed his king at every turn. 23 The contrast of
this dismissive depiction of the reigning dynasty in Brittany with Christ-like
depictions of French kings could do a great deal of damage to the position of
the Montforts. The message was clear: only French kings were worthy of
ruling the people of their realm, a Kingdom that included Brittany.
On this final point the official historiographers were quite adamant;
France was a Kingdom with natural, timeless boundaries that God himself had
established, stretching from the Rhine to the Atlantic.24 It was in a typical
gesture of Christian compassion, the Saint-Denis Chronicle reports, that,
following a Saxon invasion of their native island and the massacre of their
kinsmen, the kings had allowed the Bretons, ‘To cross the sea and come to
live in the western backwaters of France’.25 Yet, according to this French
tradition, the Bretons responded to French hospitality with persistent betrayal,
demonstrating, the Chronicler suggests that this inherently corrupt people
needed the French monarchs.26 Their tendency for betrayal was worsened
only by their enthusiasm for Pelagianism. This would have condemned them
to eternal punishment had Clovis, the first amongst Christian kings, not sent
his servant Saint Geneviève to, ‘Destroy the heresy which corrupted the holy
Church in that part of the world.’27 Besides the specific attacks on Jean IV,
mentioned above, the French historiographical tradition appears to condemn
all past rulers of Brittany.
Godliness and plenty could only thrive in the
Armorican peninsula if the heirs of Clovis directly ruled it.
22
J. Froissart, Chroniques: Livre I et Livre II, (eds.) P. F. Ainsworth and G. T. Pillier, (Paris,
2001), p. 357.
23
J.-C. Cassard, ‘Les ragots sur l’extraction douteuse de Jean de Montfort’, in J.-C. Cassard
(ed.), La Guerre de Succession de Bretagne (Spézet, 2006), p. 45.
24
A.-P. Paulin (ed.), Grandes Chroniques de France selon qu’elles sont conservés en l’église
de Saint-Denis en France: Tome I (Paris, 1836), p. 259.
25
J.-C. Cassard, ‘L’histoire au renfort de la diplomatie: La “Genealogie des roys, ducs et
princes de Bretaigne” de Pierre Le Baud’, Actes du congrès national des sociétés savants,
107 (1984), p. 241; A.-P. Paulin (ed.), Grandes Chroniques de France selon qu’elles sont
conservés en l’église de Saint-Denis en France: Tome II (Paris, 1837), p. 98.
26
Ibid., pp. 147, 153, 339 and 353.
27
A.-P. Paulin (ed.), Grandes Chroniques de France I, p. 59.
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If the Montfortists wanted to consolidate their gains in the War of
Succession it was imperative that they responded to French claims. This was
primarily achieved through the use of historical writing. Whereas medieval
histories of Brittany, such as those of Alain Bouchart and Pierre Le Baud,
were once seen as mere literary curiosities, recent scholars have begun to
appreciate their value as political discourse.28 Fifteenth-century historians and
chroniclers were not concerned with the concept of ‘historical fact’ that so
preoccupied their nineteenth-century counterparts. They had, rather, a
creative conception of the past.29 Beside its legitimising role, medieval writers
also used history to express fundamental truths; just as precedent justified a
political practice, writers believed that the characteristics of peoples and
dynasties were rooted in the past. The anonymous author of the Chronicon
Briocense, composed around the turn of the fifteenth century, lists the
characteristics of certain peoples, with clear historical reference points for
each attribute. For example, ‘The treachery of the Saxons,’ clearly alludes to
the narration of the Saxon invasion of Great Britain, where the author’s fellow
Bretons were apparently wiped out by this barbarian Germanic tribe.30
Similarly, ‘The arrogance of the French’, was supposedly reflected in the
writings of the French historians, ‘Who have not mentioned the Breton kings
who lived in Great Britain and Brittany’.31
In this statement, the author of the Chronicon appears to have
established an essential topos of the Breton chronicle tradition: the attack on
alternative, especially French, medieval chronicle writers. In the preface to his
work, after emphasising the sheer number of contemporary histories he had
read, Alain Bouchart was eager to stress that he had not, ‘Encountered a
single work which has been entirely focused on our noble country Brittany,
E. Port, ‘Alain Bouchart, Chroniqueur Breton’, Annales de Bretagne, 36 (1925), p. 196; B
Guénée, ‘L’historien par les mots’, in B. Guénée (ed.), Le metier d’historien au Moyen Age:
Études sur l’historiographie médievale (Paris, 1977), p. 16.
29
G. M. Spiegel, The Past as Text: The theory and practice of medieval historigraphy’
(Baltimore, 1997), p. 85; B. Schneidmüller, ‘Constructing the past by means of the present:
Historiographical foundations of Medieval Institutions, Dynasties, Peoples and Communities’,
in G. Althoff, J. Fried and P. J. Geary (eds.), Medieval Concepts of the Past: Ritual, memory
and historiography (Cambridge, 2002), p. 192.
30 G. Le Duc and C. Steckx (eds.), Chronicon Briocense, Chronique de Saint-Brieuc: Texte
critique et traduction I, chapitres I à CIX (Rennes, 1972), pp. 51-53 and 85.
31 Ibid., pp. 61 and 85.
28
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formerly known as the Kingdom of Armorica’.32 Of course, this is not entirely
true; the internal characteristics of the text make it fairly clear that Bouchart
was familiar with the Chronicon Briocense and Guillaume de Saint-André’s
verse history of the life of Jean IV. He is making a polemical point: Brittany
had been neglected and overlooked for too long. It was his role to return the
Duchy to its rightful glory. In Pierre Le Baud’s Genealogie des roys, ducs et
princes de Bretaigne this polemic is even more forceful.33 Keen to assert the
rights of Duchess Anne (1488-1514) to inherit the crown of Brittany, he
attacks the, ‘Popular and erroneous opinion’, promoted by the French, ‘who
should know otherwise’, regarding the right of women to ascend to the throne
of the Duchy.34
The historiographers also used their work to suggest certain innate
virtues of the Breton monarchs which harmed the ambitions of the French
monarchy in the peninsula. The later Breton chroniclers Alain Bouchart and
Pierre Le Baud both imitated the Chronicon’s chronology of the conversion of
the mythical King Lucius and all his people in the second century, over three
hundred years before Clovis accepted baptism.35 Even when the Bretons
crossed the Channel to Brittany, the French still had another century of
paganism to endure.36 Bouchart’s text is particularly suggestive, by preceding
his contrast of Lucius and Clovis with a celebration of the, ‘Abolition and
destruction of the pagan law, and the construction of Temples dedicated to
the one and only God,’ he intended to remind his reader that, whilst the
Breton kings had opened the road to salvation for their subjects, every king of
France for next three centuries was condemned to damnation.37 The past had
spoken; the French monarchy’s superlative claims to be a chosen line of
32
Bouchart, Grandes croniques I, p. 76.
Cassard, ‘L’histoire au renfort de la diplomatie’, pp. 229-230; J. Kerhervé, ‘La “Genealogie
des roys, ducs et princes de Bretaigne” de Pierre Le Baud (1486)’, in G. Le Menn and J.-Y.
Le Moing (eds.), Bretagne et pays celtiques: Langues, histoire et civilisation (Saint-Brieuc,
2002), p. 519.
34
P. Le Baud, ‘Genealogie des roys, ducs et princes de Bretaigne’, (ed.) J. Kerhervé, in G. Le
Menn and J.-Y. Le Moing (eds.), Bretagne et pays celtiques: Langues, histoire et civilisation
(Saint-Brieuc, 2002), p. 529.
35 Bouchart, Grandes croniques I, pp. 150-151; P. Le Baud, Croniques et Ystoires des
Bretons: Tome I, (ed.) C. de la Lande de Calan, (Rennes, 1910), p. 198.
36 Bouchart, Grandes croniques I, pp. 151-152.
37 Ibid., p. 151.
33
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‘most-Christian’ kings surely had no grounding in reality. This line of attack
had such force that it persisted throughout the fifteenth century and was even
taken up in Burgundy, another autonomous principality eager to resist the
French monarchy.38
These authors did not stop at overturning the Saint-Denis Chronicler’s
accusations of heresy; they also denied the account of the migration found in
the Grandes Chroniques de France. Where the French chronicle represented
the Bretons as passive victims of a powerful aggressor, the Chronicon
Briocense tried to demonstrate that the migration was part of a divine plan for
the Breton people. What is more, the writer presented the ensuing slaughter
of the pre-conquest people, the Armoricans, as a pseudo-crusade. The
Bishop of Caerleon, according to the Chronicon, preached that, ‘He who
engages his soul for his brothers is a true follower of Christ. If one amongst
you dies in battle, his death shall be his penitence and his absolution’.39 Whilst
the French were still living under the yoke of paganism, the Chronicon
depicted the Bretons engaging in the ideal of Christian warfare, spreading the
faith and erecting churches, including Notre-Dame de Paris.40 Through his
appropriation of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia Regnum Britanniae then, the
author of the Chronicon turned the marginalised, treacherous Bretons of the
Grandes Chroniques de France into a prominent, virtuous, implicitly mostChristian people, with a most-Christian king of their own to rule them.
The dignity of the Breton dukes was further reflected, according to the
chronicler, by the celestial nature of their coat of arms. No doubt the real
origins of the ‘moucheture d’hermines’ was as obscure to medieval writers as
it has been to their modern counterparts.41 However, this only provided the
Breton Chroniclers with the possibility of loading this already contested
symbol with further levels of meaning. One story of the dukes receiving their
G. Small, ‘Of Burgundian dukes, counts, saints and kings (14 C.E – c. 1500)’, in D’A. J. D.
Boulton and J. R. Veenstra (eds.), The Ideology of Burgundy: The promotion of national
consciousness, 1364-1565 (Boston, 2006), pp. 153-154.
39
Le Duc and Steckx (eds.), Chronicon Briocense, p. 151.
40
Ibid., p. 62.
41
S. de la Nicollière Teijeino, ‘Études Héraldiques: l’Hermine’, Revue de Bretagne et de
Vendée, 31 (1871), p. 29.
38
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arms was clearly meant to parallel and rival the French narrative of the fleur
de lys: the Virgin Mary herself, according to the Chronicon Briocense,
appeared to King Arthur, ‘Dressed in an ermine cloak’. After finding protection
under this heavenly garment, the King quickly adopted the ermine as his
heraldic emblem.42 The representation of the ducal coat of arms on Breton
coinage demonstrated and promoted the equivalence that the dukes intended
their subjects to draw between the celestial origins of the fleur de lys and the
moucheture.43 After all, many Breton coins simply replace the former with the
latter [Fig. 2.1]. The coat of arms of the dukes was intended to be much more
than a symbol of legitimacy, it was emblematic of the close relationship with
God that the rulers of Brittany were supposed to have enjoyed since the reign
of Lucius.
At this point, it should come as little surprise that the Breton version of
history seems to have been received much more favourably amongst Bretons
that the account propagated in the Grandes Chroniques de France. Although
no Breton texts recount the story of Saint Geneviève and the pelagian heresy,
several fragments remain to testify that literate Bretons, at least,
enthusiastically engaged with the myths promoted by Montfortist historians.
One example from Saint-Pol-de-Léon, a town on the tip of the peninsula, far
from the ducal capital of Nantes, celebrates the Emperor Constantine, seen
by Le Baud, Bouchart and the Chronicon as a legendary King of Brittany:
‘[He] endowed the church with a rich heritage, demonstrating the generosity
and liberality that befits a Christian and Breton Emperor’.44 The work
culminates with a celebration of the Duchy through its most illustrious son
Saint Yves: ‘Never has any realm produced such an illustrious child.’45 The
writer of this fragment had clearly engaged with the intentions of the historical
texts, presenting a vision of Brittany as a truly holy land, a dominion where the
religious people felt a bond to their exemplary holy rulers.
42
Le Duc and Steckx (eds.), Chronicon Briocense, pp. 61-63.
M. Pastoureau, ‘L’hermine: De l’héraldique ducale à la symbolique de l’état’, in J. Kerhervé
and T. Daniel (eds.), 1491: Bretagne, terre d’europe (Brest, 1992), p. 260.
44
(No author), ‘Fragment d’un éloge de la Bretagne au XVe siècle’, Bulletin de la Société
Archéologique de Finistère, 15 (1888), p. 184.
45
Ibid., p. 185.
43
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The persisting attraction of these ideas to the educated people of
Brittany is clearly testified by another short Latin piece, found in a religious
dictionary printed in 1521, when Brittany was under the reign of the Valois, yet
remained a separate entity from the Kingdom of France. ‘Who could not write
in Brittany’s praise?’ the writer asks.46 ‘Who could fail to celebrate its merits?
Admire it to the highest detail?’47 Indeed, educated Bretons continued to write
histories that commemorated the Montfort dynasty and Breton independence
well into the sixteenth century, long after the official union of the duchy to
France in 1547.48 A history of Brittany written by Bertrand d’Argentré, an
ardent supporter of independence, was published and subsequently banned
in 1588 by the King Henri III (1574-1589). Yet the dukes of Brittany could not
simply rely on the literate minority to propagate their holy image. A sustained
use of visual and non-literary media would be necessary to make their
message reach as many people as possible.
The presence of the dukes in the lives of their subjects, through
ceremonies and entries into the towns, was a notable attempt to extend the
reach of their message.49 The best documented and most significant of such
events is the coronation ritual. In the fifteenth century, Saint-Pierre de Rennes
played host to no less than six ducal coronations. Although much of the
service was carried out in ecclesiastical Latin, many elements, such as the
ducal coronation oath, were conducted in French. One should, of course,
exercise caution when considering the significance of the vernacular’s role in
the ritual; the use of the liturgical language undoubtedly had a significant role
in establishing the perception of the dukes as God’s representatives on earth.
This was especially pertinent, given the notable absence of an anointing ritual.
Yet the French-language elements in the text stress other evidences of the
dukes’ role as God’s chosen representatives on earth. The Ordo, for example,
bestows the crown, ‘Which indicates that you receive your authority of the
Quoted in P. Trepos, ‘Le catholicon de Jean Lagadeuc: pour son cinquième centenaire’,
Annales de Bretagne, 71 4 (1964), p. 547.
47
Ibid., p. 547.
48
J. Kerhervé, ‘La naissance de l’histoire en Bretagne, milieu XIVe siècle – fin XVIe siècle’, in
J. Balcou and Y. Le Gallo (eds.), Histoire Littéraire et Culturelle de la Bretagne: Vol. I (Paris,
1987), pp. 245-271.
49
M. Jones, ‘The rituals and significant of ducal civic entries’, pp. 287-314.
46
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omnipotent God’, with a fundamentally mystical significance, by relating the
circular crown to biblical descriptions of God’s power, ‘Which like the circle
has neither beginning nor end.’50
Modern cultural theory however, so often used and abused by overzealous medievalists, is quick to warn us that the signs and symbols of events
like coronations are not merely objective forms of communication; their very
power results from their inherent ambiguity. Unfortunately, whereas a plethora
of French sources detail the responses of certain writers to the coronation
ritual of the Valois kings at Notre-Dame de Reims, the Breton sources provide
very little information about the reception of the ducal coronation. 51
Nevertheless, what is clear is that the Breton historians were intent on
manipulating the response of their readers. Much debate centred upon the
importance of anointment. Once again the anonymous author of the
Chronicon Briocense led the way, arguing that in some kingdoms monarchs
simply did not require unction. He provides his reader with an extensive list of
these realms, including Brittany amongst the kingdoms of Castille, Léon,
Navarre and Hungary.52 Bouchart took up his predecessor’s argument,
suggesting that anointing was a mere triviality that concealed the equality of
kings of France and the dukes of Brittany.53 Less believable was the
Chronicon’s farcical rewriting of the Clovis legend, in which God was obliged
to provide the anointing oil because his inept French followers had
inadvertently allowed their own vial to be smashed by devils. 54
This desire to influence the readership’s interpretation of the coronation
ritual is also explicit in Pierre Le Baud’s chronicle, especially through the use
of illustrations. Whereas the other chronicles are primarily concerned with
counteracting the pretentions of the French, these illustrations use the French
F. Fery-Hue (ed.), ‘Le cérémonial du couronnement des ducs de Bretagne au XVe siècle:
édition’, Actes du congrès national des sociétés savants, 107 (1984), p. 258.
51
H. Wolf, ‘Les sacres du XVe siècle racontés par les chroniqueurs: le mystère et la fête’, in
(No editor), Le Sacre des Rois: Actes du colloque international d’histoire sur les sacres et
couronnements royaux (Paris, 1985), pp. 131-140.
52
Le Duc and Steckx (eds.), Chronicon Briocense, p. 83.
53
Bouchart, Grandes croniques I, p. 325.
54
Le Duc and Steckx (eds.), Chronicon Briocense, pp. 93 and 209.
50
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model, as the Ordo of the coronation itself did, to create a positive image of
the Breton ‘monarchy’. The depiction of the coronation of François I (14421450) for example has a dual role [Fig. 2.2]. On one hand, it stresses the
solemnity of the service, the very moment when the crown, symbol of
François’s God-given power, is placed on his head. The eyes of all, clergy,
nobles and commons, are focused on the Duke. The proximity to the altar and
the prominence of the Bishop stress the essentially spiritual nature of this
ceremony. This is reinforced by the statue of the Virgin and Child seen above
the Cathedral door, extending the political use of this most international of
figures during the reign of François’s father.55 At the same time, this image is
clearly designed to encourage a comparative reading. The similarities with a
depiction of King Arthur’s coronation earlier in the chronicle are remarkable
[Fig. 2.3]. Our illustrator, rather than Le Baud himself perhaps, is visibly
emphasising the posterity of the quasi-priestly nature of a duke’s role.
The iconography of priestly kingship was not limited to the illuminated
manuscripts of Pierre Le Baud. Consider, for example, the much-discussed
early-fifteenth-century statue of Duke Jean V (1389-1442), which stands in the
Chapelle de Saint Fiacre in Le Faouët on the southwest coast of the
peninsula [Fig. 2.4].56 The chapel itself was a popular centre of pilgrimage that
Jean V had personally supported with his revenues. Although the piece has
been slightly damaged, it appears to bring together several strands of the
developing Breton ideology, based largely upon the ideas of their French
neighbours. Kneeling down, with his hands joined in prayer, there is
unquestionably something quasi-priestly about this figure. Each element of his
clothing appears to be of significance. The ermine cloak could represent the
duke’s royal status and the prosperity of his duchy, whilst at the same time
evoking the legend of King Arthur and the Virgin Mary. Equally the red, whilst
providing a good contrast with the royal blue of the dukes’ French
adversaries, was, along with gold, one of the main colours of ecclesiastical
C. de Merindal, ‘Essai sur l’emblématique de la maison de Bretagne: Mise au point,
nouvelles lectures, nouvelles perspectives’, in J Kerhervé and T. Daniel (eds.), 1492: La
Bretagne, terre d’Europe (Brest, 1992), p. 282.
56
M. Jones, ‘En son habit royal’, p. 261.
55
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vestments. Contemporaries also interpreted red as a symbol for the blood
spilled by Christ and his martyrs.
Of course, one cannot assume that fifteenth-century Bretons always
interpreted these artefacts in this way. The statue in Le Faouët, for example,
is just one object in a highly ornate chapel: plenty of other objects could have
attracted the attention of visiting pilgrims. Equally, certain elements of the
Chronicon Briocense probably seemed ridiculous to its readers, especially the
scene where the French coronation vial is smashed by devils. The trouble is
not so much that the author completely overturns a central myth of French
kingship, but rather the clumsy way in which he goes about it. When the ideas
of the French were more subtly adapted to meet the needs of the Montforts
they had the potential to be much more powerful. Of course, this influence has
serious repercussions for the more exaggerated accounts of the extent of
French ‘national identity’ in the late Middle Ages.57 Yet simply adapting and
responding to the French tradition was not enough. To have a real hold on the
mindsets of their subjects, the historiographers had to situate the sanctity of
the Montforts in the local religious and historical traditions of the Bretons
themselves.
57
Strayer, ‘The Holy Land’, pp. 3-16.
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3. The Role of Indigenous Traditions
In order to fully cultivate the support of the Montforts’ subjects, the chroniclers
of Brittany had to do much more than simply counteract the claims of the
French cult of kingship: it was also necessary to situate their ideology in a
familiar context that would resonate among the Breton people. This
framework was provided by the insular religious traditions of the Duchy. To a
certain extent, these traditions and beliefs bound the people of Brittany
together without the involvement of propagandists. Although people came
from far and wide to visit the tomb of Saint Vincent Ferrer in Vannes, for
example, it was exclusively Bretons, in large numbers, who made the trip to
the shrine of Saint Tugdual in Tréguier. Indeed, whilst other European people
failed to acknowledge Tugdual’s existence, let alone his sanctity, Breton
popular tradition argued that Saint Tugdual’s head had even been graced with
the papal tiara. As the numerous sculptures of his image attest, here was a
character who, albeit loosely, brought the people of Brittany together in a
common belief.58 It was when the chroniclers were able to undermine the
claims of the French whilst situating their tales in a context familiar to the
people of Brittany that they would be most successful.
The tendency to adapt local traditions to suit political needs was not, of
course, restricted to Brittany. In their Dutch lands, the late-medieval dukes of
Burgundy attempted to appropriate the local traditions of the Flemish towns in
order to cultivate a sense of allegiance, a comparison that appears particularly
relevant, given that Phillip the Bold (1363-1404) was responsible for the
government of Brittany during the minority of Jean V.59 Consider, for example,
the importance of the relic of the Holy Blood, which was a particularly strong
source of civic pride in Bruges, especially once Clement V (1305-1314) gave
official sanction, in a papal bull, to the belief that the relic had powers of
liquefaction. Traditionally, the annual procession of the relic followed the city
walls, simultaneously celebrating the physical barrier and the supernatural
V.-H. Debidour, La Sculpture Bretonne: Étude d’iconographie religieuse populaire (Rennes,
1953), p. 167.
59
A. Brown, ‘Civic Ritual: Bruges and the Counts of Flanders in the Later Middle Ages’,
English Historical Review, 112 (1997), p. 289.
58
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force that protected the city from external influences.60 In the fifteenth century
the dukes tried to exploit the procession of the Holy Blood for the own needs,
by stressing the role of their predecessor Count Thierry (1128-1168) in
obtaining the relic, in order to express the solidarity of the dukes and their
civic subjects against the common French enemy.61 In 1465 the relic played
an important role in a procession to celebrate the victory of Burgundian forces
over the French at Montlhéry.
Instead of local ceremonial customs, the Breton dukes developed the
popular legends of the early-medieval Breton saint-kings: most notably those
of King Salomon and King Judicaël (c.630-648). Customs associated with
these saints had enjoyed a huge popularity in Brittany during the Middle Ages,
with cults appearing almost immediately after the deaths of these historical
kings. According to the traditional vitae, Salomon was a martyr-king whereas
Judicaël was an ideal confessor of the Christian faith: the two most powerful
archetypes in the medieval imagination. According to legend, Salomon first
had his eyes gouged out, and was then murdered, by members of his own
family after retiring to a monastery. Judicaël, on the other hand, took up the
life of a monk in the later years of his life and was celebrated for his
exceptional piety. In early-medieval Brittany other royal saints had enjoyed
equally widespread veneration; a biography of the legendary King Guénolé
from the ninth century presents him as an ideal Christian king, and the relics
of the saint-monarch Méloir were the focus of cults in both Redon and
Quimper.62 Yet the cults of Guénolé and Méloir seem to have died out long
before the reign of the Montforts.
Conversely, Salomon and Judicaël continued to play an important role
in Breton cultural life well into the late Middle Ages. As well as his
fundamental role in the liturgical calendar, with his legend gracing the pages
of many Breton Books of Hours, Saint Salomon was also present in
60
Ibid., p. 281.
Ibid., p. 292.
62
A. Vauchez, ‘Le duc Charles de Blois et le culte des saints rois Bretons du Haut Moyen
Age’, in C. Lepellay and M. Sot (eds.), Haut Moyen-Age: Culture, Éducation, Société, Études
offerts à Pierre Riché (Paris, 1990), pp. 607-608.
61
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geographical space, most notably in the town of La Martyre near Brest, the
site of his refuge and martyrdom.63 In fact, his reputation was such that he
became an important character in the chansons de geste, specifically in the
twelfth-century poet Jean Bodel’s Chanson des Saisnes. Despite the
reservations of one critic, who mistakenly interprets the Old French literary
tradition through the lens of the theories of French classicism, it is now
generally acknowledged that an oral tradition retelling the gestes of Salomon
continued to enjoy popularity in Brittany up to, and perhaps beyond, the latefifteenth century.64 The tale of Judicaël, legendary in Brittany for his resistance
to the Franks as well as his sanctity, also continued to play a fundamental
importance in Breton cultural life. Whereas Salomon’s remains were taken out
of Brittany in the early Middle Ages, Judicaël’s tomb was a well established
object of popular devotion at Saint-Méen, where the parish church was
eventually rededicated to his memory.65
It should come as little surprise that the memories of these saints were
used to support the dukes’ legal cases against royal encroachment on ducal
independence. After all, their cults were well known in France as well as
Brittany; Salomon’s relics were, and continue to be, housed in a church in
Pithiviers, just south of Paris, whilst the great poet of the Chanson des
Saisnes, Jean Bodel, spent much of his life in Arras, in the Northeast of the
Kingdom. In a letter to Charles VI (1380-1399) written in 1384, Jean IV did not
make reference to just any of his predecessors when justifying his ‘royal
rights’. On the contrary, he picked the most emotionally charged kings he
could: ‘It should please you to know that Brittany … used to be called a
Kingdom, governed by kings. Such were King Judicaël, King Salomon, King
Conan and the others, their successors, who presided over a royal
government’.66 Of course, the use of precedent in itself was an incredibly
charged political device for Jean IV to use; in medieval thought the practice of
the past conferred legitimacy on similar acts in the present. Yet, in highlighting
D. Plaine, ‘Saint Salomon, roi de Bretagne et martyre’, Revue des pays de l’Ouest, 11
(1895), pp. 623-630.
64
Bédier, Les Légendes Épiques, p. 116; L. Fleuriot, ‘Récits et contes’, in J. Balcou and Y. Le
Gallo (eds.), Histoire Littéraire et Culturelle de la Bretagne: Vol. I (Paris, 1987), p. 126.
65
Vauchez, ‘Le duc Charles de Blois et le culte des saints rois Bretons’, p. 610.
66
M. Jones (ed.), Recueil des actes de Jean IV, duc de Bretagne: Vol. II (Paris, 1980), p. 374.
63
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the role of these saintly individuals, the Duke consciously invested
independent government in Brittany with a divine legitimacy.
In a sense the Montfort dukes were builing upon a policy of their
predecessor and rival, Charles de Blois, in making use of the cults of these
indigenous Breton saints.67 Charles seemed to closely associate himself with
Judicaël and Salomon in churches across the Duchy. In the Dominican church
at Guingamp, for example, he commissioned a statue of himself dressed in an
ermine robe, kneeling before the effigies of the saint-Kings, as well as the
founder-saints Donatien and Rogatien. Further east, in Rennes, he paid for
chapels to be dedicated to Salomon and Judicaël in the Cathedral. Later, he
led the way in lobbying the papacy for the canonisation of Saint Yves,
perhaps explaining the relative reluctance of the Montforts in promoting that
particular cult whilst encouraging allegiance to their own dynasty. 68 Yet, when
examined in the context of the Breton War of Succession, it seems that
Charles was less concerned with encouraging loyalty than he was with
establishing his identity. After all, Charles was a Frenchman from Blois, south
of Paris, with close links to the Valois dynasty: his claims to the duchy came
solely through his 1337 marriage to Jeanne de Penthièvre, the daughter of
Jean III (1312-1341). By advancing the Breton saints’ cults, Charles was
primarily linking himself with indigenous traditions to asserting his Breton,
rather than French, credentials.
The Montforts, on the other hand, did not have such a fundamental
need for these dynastic saints; their Breton origins were well established by
their direct links, through the male line, to the Dreux, who had ruled the Duchy
for much of the thirteenth and early-fourteenth centuries. Their use of these
saints was motivated by a more specific desire to confer the qualities of these
exceptional predecessors onto themselves, establishing their legitimacy to
succeed the saintly kings. Furthermore, given that Salomon and Judicaël
M. Jones, ‘Politics, Sanctity and the Breton State: The case of the blessed Charles de Blois,
duke of Brettany (d. 1364)’, in J. R. Maddicott and D. M. Pallister (eds.), The Medieval State:
Essays presented to James Campbell (London, 2000), p. 231.
68
J.-M. Guillouët, ‘L’iconographie de Saint Yes et la politiques dynastique des Montfort à la fin
du Moyen Age’, Annales de Bretagne et des Pays de l’Ouest, 107 1 (2000), p. 40.
67
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were both closely associated with rejection of French rule and an assertion of
Breton independence, their cults also conferred a certain divine legitimacy on
the assertion of similar pretences in the fifteenth century.
This is most clearly depicted by an engraving in the 1515 edition of
Bouchart’s Grands Croniques [Fig. 3.1]. At the top of the picture are three of
the canonised monarchs celebrated in all the chronicles and genealogies of
the Montforts; Judicaël, Salomon and Helen.69 They are presiding above ten
of the most popular local saints of Brittany, including, at the bottom, the seven
saints of the Tro Breizh pilgrimage, a devotion carried out by an estimated
30,000 people a year in the fifteenth century. 70 Here, the dukes are placed
directly and explicitly in the context of the insular religious traditions of
Brittany. The very layout of the picture, focusing on Salomon, the open-armed
figure at the top of the page, seems to confer a degree of superiority on the
saintly monarchs over the other figures depicted. Comparison with other
engravings in the work suggests that the artist wished to emphasise the
similarities and continuities between the saints of old and the Montfort dukes
[Fig. 3.2]. The unnamed duke, depicted later in the Grands Croniques
presiding over the Breton Parlement, displays all the vital characteristics of his
saintly predecessor; crowned and with open arms he bears a main de justice
and a sceptre, even wearing the same clothes. Clearly, the prestige of the
predecessor is being conferred on the contemporary Duke.
The narrative sources go even further than this, by rewriting the
legends of the royal saints to suit the political aims of the Montforts. The story
of the birth of Judicaël in Pierre Le Baud’s Croniques et ystoires, for example,
provides several striking comparisons with the biblical narratives of Christ’s
nativity. Despite acknowledging that the saint was not born of a virgin, the text
describes the queen’s pregnancy as a ‘miraculous conception’ and claims that
she suffered no pain during childbirth.71 Indeed, Le Baud’s version of the
legend even features an extended dream narrative in which Judicaël’s father
P. Le Baud, ‘La genealogie des roys, ducs et princes de Bretaigne’, pp. 536, 539 and 541.
P. Gaillou and M. Jones, The Bretons (Oxford, 1991), p. 272.
71
P. Le Baud, Croniques et Ystoires des Bretons: Tome II, (ed.) C. de la Lande de Calan,
(Rennes, 1910), pp. 153 and 156-157.
69
70
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discovers that his beloved is destined to become not only his wife, but also
the mother to an heir who’s reign was to usher in a unparalleled epoch of
greatness in Brittany’s history.72 The pinnacle of Le Baud’s rewriting of the life
of Judicaël occurs when God himself, in the form of a leper, appears to
Judicaël towards the end of the king’s life, reassuring him that, ‘Since you
have honoured me on Earth you will be exalted and honoured in heaven’.73 By
changing the traditional legend in this way, Le Baud’s intentions are clear; this
saint is seen not only as an exceptionally holy individual, worthy of divine
assurance of his salvation, but also as a saviour of his realm who’s reign
foreshadows and legitimises the prosperity of Montfort rule.
The writers also manipulated the legend of King Salomon. The
structure of Alain Bouchart’s Grandes Chroniques is particularly striking; the
writer immediately followed his description of the coronation of this, ‘Virtuous
and loyal prince, a great catholic and good Christian,’ with a claim that the
contemporaneous French kings, ‘The two bastards of France,’ were godless
usurpers.74 What is more, Bouchart recreated Salomon’s martyrdom, ‘The
death and passion of the noble King,’ as an event of universal importance.
Rather than simply retelling the established miracle stories, he adds to the
martyrdom the occurrence of several phenomena, recalling the crucifixion
narrative in Matthew’s gospel.75 Indeed, according to Bouchart, the bodies of
numerous saints, including the evangelist himself, were removed from their
Breton tombs and taken to countries far away by invading armies who were
furious at the murder of such an exemplary individual. Once again an
historical narrative seemed to be conferring Christ-like characteristics on
Salomon and, by implication, his successors, the Montfort dukes of Brittany,
encouraging loyalty and support. Furthermore, Salomon is given a
fundamental importance and renown throughout Christendom, further
undercutting the French chronicle tradition that seemed, at best, to overlook
the Breton dynasty, at worst, to denigrate it. Clearly the religious stories were
being given a political dimension.
72
Ibid., pp. 155-156.
Ibid., p. 164.
74
Bouchart, Grandes croniques I, pp. 335 and 337.
75 Ibid., pp. 342-343.
73
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To fully exploit this adaptation of local religious traditions, the Montforts
and their supporters made the material available to their largely non-literate
population by appropriating religious spaces as well as religious texts. 76 The
church at La Martyre, the traditional site of Salmon’s martyrdom, was
renovated during the reign of François II in a project financed primarily by
ducal revenues. The main door to the church, one of the main projects
undertaken by an anonymous architect associated with the Montforts, is
adorned with sculptures depicting the life of Christ, surrounded by angels
holding the shields of the dukes of Brittany [Fig. 3.3]. 77 The dukes even went
beyond the cults promoted by the historical writers in their search for selfpromotion. In Quimper, for example, Jean V erected a statue of himself
besides an effigy of the mythical King Gradlon, traditionally seen as a king of
the Cornouaille region, reinterpreting this figure as ‘Christian King of
Armorican Brittany … by the grace and mercy of God’.78 The divine origin of
ducal power, according to this inscription, surpassed even that of Clovis,
justifying the claims that fifteenth-century dukes were making about the nature
of their authority. This exemplifies the more general politicisation of religious
space in a region far away from the Montfort stronghold in the east of the
peninsula.
However, this emphasis on the politicisation of sainthood in the
fifteenth century, a commonplace of medieval history since André Vauchez’s
groundbreaking thesis on the subject, tends to neglect the genuine role of
saints in the spiritual life of late-medieval political élites by imposing a modern,
secular cynicism about the interaction of politics and religion onto a fervently
devout age.79 While the academic soteriology of the fifteenth-century church
certainly upheld of the role of intercessors in an individual’s salvation, in the
76
J.-Y. Copy, Art, Société et Politique au temps des Ducs de Bretagne: Les gisants hautsbretons (Paris, 1986), p. 188.
77
C. Prigent, Pouvoir ducal, religion et production artistique en Basse-Bretagne, 1350-1575
(Paris, 1992), p. 176.
78
Vauchez, ‘Le duc Charles de Blois et le culte des saints rois Bretons’, p. 607; Quoted in
Copy, Art, Société et Politique au temps des Ducs de Bretagne, p. 187.
79 A. Vauchez, La Sainteté en Occident aux derniers siècles de Moyen Age, d’après les
procès de canonisation et les documents hagiographiques (Rome, 1981), pp. 625-29.
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mind of the laity the invocation of saints was often seen as a necessary
element in gaining eternal life. Of course, some dukes were more concerned
with spirituality than others; whereas Charles de Blois heard masses at a rate
that could have put even Saint Louis to shame, Arthur III (1457-58) made his
reputation as an exemplary figure of chivalry, as celebrated by Guillaume
Gruel’s prose life of the Duke, which contained stories of Arthur’s
accomplishments in battle.80 However, the personal piety of the dukes of
Brittany cannot be in doubt; an alternative position was simply not conceivable
in the intellectual climate of their time. The appropriation of the legendary
saint kings was not a purely political manoeuvre.
Nevertheless, there certainly was a political dimension to the way the
legends of these saints were appropriated and transformed by the Montfortist
ideology. The miraculous birth of Judicaël and the Christ-like martyrdom of
Salomon were recounted by the chroniclers in a way that seems to confer the
extraordinary piety of these characters on the fifteenth-century dukes,
developing upon and adding to the use of the French royal tradition described
in the previous chapter. Yet it seems inappropriate to talk about an emerging
Breton national feeling without examining how people engaged with these
ideas; to discuss identity without looking at individuals seems to be a
contradiction in terms. Scholars have drawn attention to some evidence for
the acceptance of these ideas: the parish register of Croisic, for example,
refers to the local people as Trojans and the town as ‘a villa trojana’.81
However, many enthusiastic historians of Brittany have, in recent years,
neglected to closely examine how the people of the duchy responded to the
Montfort ideology.82 Furthermore, if there was indeed a connection with the
ideas that the narrative sources promoted, this surely calls the social extent of
such an engagement into question.
G. Gruel, Chronique d’Artur de Richemont, connétable de France, duc de Bretagne, (ed.) A.
Le Vavasseur (Paris, 1890), pp. 8-10.
81
Port, ‘Alain Bouchart, Chroniqueur Breton’, p. 514.
82
J. Kerhervé, ‘Aux origins d’un sentiment national: les chroniqueurs Bretons de la fin du
Moyen Age’, Bulletin de la société archéologique du Finistère, 108 (1980), pp. 165-206.
80
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4. Reception and Response
Did late-medieval readers believe that the chronicles, by giving the Breton
people a history, were snubbing the French ideology, or did people regard
these works as simply restoring Brittany to a prestigious position in the history
of a French nation, where it had too often been absent? Much scholarly work
has tended, given a supposed scarcity of primary sources, to avoid the thorny
issue of reception.83 Other scholars have suggested, without bringing much
evidence to their support, that late-medieval Bretons had a dual identity, being
both French and Breton at the same time. 84 Certainly some Bretons did
embrace a dual identity; for some members of the upper nobility, such as the
counts of Laval, who held lands on both sides of the border, it was inscribed
on their very existence. Yet close scrutiny of the sources suggests that
something far more complex was at work. After all, the politics of Brittany was
characterised by faction and instability.85 It should come as no surprise that
the political challenges that the upper nobility made for the power of the
Montforts was reflected in their reception of the Breton historical narratives.
There was certainly ample possibility for these sources to be read and
adapted. The Chronicon Briocense, written around the turn of the fifteenth
century, was the founding text of Breton historiography. Although it was
written in Latin and exists today in only two manuscripts, both Pierre Le Baud
and Alain Bouchart had certainly read it. Furthermore, despite current
uncertainty about the specific identity of the author, all the evidence suggests
that the writer had access to official documents; this was a writer involved in
the workings of government.86 Pierre Le Baud was also close to the Montforts.
His Croniques et ystoires were originally written around 1480 at the behest of
Jean de Derval, who was an ardent supporter of François II, and Le Baud
83
B. Guénée, States and Nations in late-medieval Europe (Oxford, 1988), p. 216.
C. Beaune, The Birth of an Ideology: Myths and symbols of nation in late-medieval France
(Oxford, 1981), p. 324; M. Jones, ‘Breton Identity’, pp. 76-77.
85
M. Jones, ‘The Breton Nobility and the Masters from the Civil War of 1341-64 to the late
Fifteenth Century’, in M. Jones (ed.), The Creation of Brittany (London, 1988), p. 225.
86
M. Jones, ‘Memory, invention and the Breton state: the first inventory of the ducal archives
(1395) and the beginnings of Montfort historiography’, Journal of Medieval History, 33 (2007),
p. 290; Kerhervé, ‘Les chroniqueurs bretons de la fin du Moyen Age’, p. 206.
84
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subsequently revised them for Duchess Anne.87 One of the manuscripts of
this work, held at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, was extravagantly
decorated in such a way to suggest that Jean de Derval intended to openly
display it rather than to hide it away. What is more, the coloured anecdotes of
the work lend themselves to being read aloud. Alain Bouchart’s Grandes
Croniques lends itself to similar treatment but, as a printed book, it is set apart
from the other works of Breton history by its extraordinarily wide diffusion; it
went through no less than five editions from 1514-1541. Although this history
was published after Anne’s marriage to the French King, the Duchess
commissioned it in order to bolster Breton national sentiment, a cause to
which its author, as a jurist who had argued the case for Breton autonomy at
the French parlement, was sympathetic.88 After all, complete annexation of
the Duchy was not yet inevitable.
Much evidence remains to suggest that certain sections of Breton
society enthusiastically acknowledged the Montfortist ideology promoted in
these works despite the destruction of sources during the French Wars of
Religion (1562-99) and the Revolution (1789-99). A fifteenth-century stainedglass window in Saint-Corentin Cathedral in Quimper, on the eastern tip of the
peninsula, far from the Montfort’s capital at Nantes, provides a striking
example. In the choir of the Cathedral, the window donated by Baron Hervé
de Juch portrays the Baron and his son Henri venerating the saint-king
Judicaël, alongside two of the founder saints.89 As enthusiastic supporters of
the dukes, it is hardly surprising that the Juch family accepted and promoted
one of the dynastic saints of the Montfort family in this way. Yet, given the
widespread destruction and replacement of stained-glass windows in
particular, with the revolutionaries of 1793 transforming Quimper Cathedral
itself into a Temple of Reason, it is tempting to suggest that such depictions
were much more widespread in Brittany in the fifteenth century. We know, for
example, that several windows depicting Jean V and his wife have been lost,
J.-C. Cassard, ‘Un historien au travail: Pierre Le Baud’, Mémoires de la Société d'histoire et
d'archéologie de Bretagne, 62 (1985), p. 69-82.
88 E. Port., ‘Alain Bouchard, Chroniquer Breton: Suite et fin’, Annales de Bretagne 37 (1926),
pp. 96-101.
89
F. Gatouillat and M. Hérold, Les Vitraux de Bretagne (Rennes, 2005), p. 176.
87
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despite the ducal coat of arms adorning windows in churches across the
peninsula.90
Arguments from silence, however, provide only slender support for
widespread attachment the Montfortist ideology. Still, there is plenty of
evidence, besides the architectural details of the Duchy’s churches, to
suggest that certain sections of society accepted and responded to the work
of the Breton chronicles. The legends of Salomon and Judicaël, for example,
are so well attested in late-medieval Breton breviaries that one historian has
commented that these liturgical books seem to share the nation-building
motives of the chroniclers.91 Whilst his ecclesiastical inferiors were composing
the breviaries, Salomon de Kergoanach, one of the most powerful clerics in
the Duchy, enthusiastically propagated the cult of Saint Salomon. On the seal
of his office, as Archdeacon of Goëlo on the north Breton coast, he depicted
himself kneeling at the feet of his namesake, clad in a suit of armour covered
in the heraldic moucheture d’hermines.92 The saint is clearly identifiable by the
swords piercing his eyes, recalling the gruesome story of his martyrdom when
the traitors, ‘Removed his two eyes from his head and threw them to the
ground’.93 Of course, part of the archdeacon’s zeal for his name-saint was
undoubtedly due to a genuine belief in the importance of intercession in the
process of salvation. Yet the seal of this powerful cleric also shows quite
clearly that the ideology of the Montfortist dynasty had a hold on certain
sections of the Breton nobility.
The most powerful families in the Duchy were equally enthusiastic in
their response of the historical works, but rather than simply accepting and
propagating the ideas of the anonymous of Saint-Brieuc, they examined and
imitated them. Following the marriage of Jeanne de Laval to René of Anjou
(1434-1480), claimant to the thrones of Naples and Jerusalem, in 1454, she
commissioned Pierre Le Baud to write a history of her family to further expand
90
Ibid., p. 172.
Bernard Mendrignac, ‘Les origins bretonnes dans les leçons des brévaires des XVe-XVIe
siècles’, in J. Kerhervé and T. Daniel (eds.), 1491: Bretagne, terre d’europe (Brest, 1992), p.
301.
92
D. Le Page and M. Nassier, L’Union de Bretagne à la France (Morlaix, 2003), p. 35.
93
Bouchart, Grands croniques I, p. 341.
91
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their stature. In the preface to this work, the author emphasises that the
Counts of Laval themselves are descended from ‘Royal dukes and princes’ of
Brittany, seemingly conferring the prestige of the history of the Montforts onto
one of the most powerful families in the Duchy.94 What is more, in the opening
chapter he states that, following the death of King Salomon, the powers and
dignity of the ancient Breton monarchy did not simply pass down from father
to son but rather, ‘The monarchy was divided between the particular princes
of the land, each occupying what he could have and refusing to obey the
others’.95 Amongst these princes, according to the Chronique, was Count
Salomon of Rennes, godson of the saint, who founded the dynasty of Vitré
and Laval.96 Evidently, this text was meant to demonstrate not only the
worthiness of Laval to the distinction of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, but also
their pretentions to authority in Brittany, in contradiction to the quasi-absolutist
claims of the dukes.
The earliest evidence of this appropriation of Montfort propaganda
appeared in the late-fourteenth century when Jeanne de Penthièvre, the wife
of Charles de Blois, actively supported the emerging cult of her late husband
by enlisting French ambassadors at the court of Urban V (1362-1370) to lobby
for his canonisation. Charles ticked every box for the archetype of an
exemplary pious medieval leader; he regularly heard masses, actively
supported the Franciscans and a monastic hair shirt was found on his dead
body after the Battle of Auray (1364). Yet the argument for canonisation was
not based on these characteristics. The ambassadors at the papal court
argued that Charles, following his death at the hands of the Montforts in the
War of Succession, had assumed a place amongst the martyrs of the
Christian faith. This was a clear and threatening attack on the ruling dynasty.
Whereas the Montforts, who erected the chapel of their new chivalric order,
the Order of the Ermine, on the battlefield at Auray, commemorated their
victory as evidence of divine approval of their rule, the Penthièvres turned
their opponent’s army into an ungodly hoard of saint-killers, little better than
P. Le Baud, ‘Les Chroniques de Vitré’ in P. d’Hozier (ed.), Histoire de Bretagne avec les
Chroniques des Maisons de Vitré et de Laval (Paris, 1638), pp. 1-2.
95
Ibid., p. 3.
96
Ibid., p. 4.
94
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the mob who had broken into the church at La Martyre and brutally murdered
Saint Salomon.97
The Penthièvres’ supporters made ample use of the visual media in
Brittany to propagate their ideas. The tomb of Roland de Coëtgourheden in
the Franciscan church at Guimgamp is a notable example on Penthièvre
ideas, even though the Franciscans themselves had an independent financial
interest in Charles’s canonisation.98 An engraving on the tomb directly echoes
Jean IV’s promotion of the cult of the Virgin Mary, yet here we have no simple
duke venerating the Virgin and Christ-child [Fig. 4.1]. Rather, Charles de
Blois, depicted here as a saint and martyr, presents the deceased to the holy
family, directly emphasising his role as an intercessor. If the Montforts
depicted themselves as having a special connection with God they could in no
way compare with the privileged relationship presented in this engraving.
Moreover, the crowned figure of Charles is doing more than presenting
Roland to the Virgin; he also appears to be receiving homage from the
kneeled figure, whose hands are clasped around his own. 99 The very idea of
allegiance to the defeated Duke, and by association to his heirs the counts of
Penthièvre, seems to be being given an explicit degree of divine legitimacy. In
a clear subversion of the Montfortist iconography, the Penthièvres were
contradicting and rivalling the claims of their adversaries.
Of course, it must be conceded that the Penthièvres were not merely
overturning the iconography of the dukes of Brittany. Indeed, like the
Montforts’ own use of saints’ cults, the manipulation of the cult of Charles de
Blois by the counts of Penthièvre was informed by the French royal tradition of
dynastic sainthood. The similarities between Charles de Blois and Louis IX,
for example, were numerous and did not go unnoticed by contemporaries;
D’A. J. D. Boulton, The Knights of the Crown: The monarchical orders of Knighthood in later
medieval Europe, 1325-1520 (Woodbridge, 2000), p. 276.
98
Hervé Martin, Les orders mendiants en Bretagne(vers 1230- vers 1530): Pauvreté
volontaire et predication à la find du Moyen-Age (Paris, 1975), p. 49.
99
J.-Y. Copy, Art, Société et Politique, pp. 114-115.
97
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Charles was a fervent supporter of the friars, an enthusiastic devotee to his
own dynastic saints and a kinsman of the great French royal saint himself.100
Unlike the cult of Saint Louis, the religious significance of Charles de
Blois originally had a very limited appeal; most of the initial visitors to his tomb
in Guingamp were former soldiers in his army who claimed he had helped
them escape from imprisonment. Nevertheless, the appeal of the cult rapidly
spread.101 Very soon the whole northern coast of the peninsula was swamped
with claims of miracles and the reports of the papal investigation into the
claims of Charles’s sanctity, which took place in the Angevin city of Anvers
during 1371, clearly showed that the ideology of the Penthièvre had crossed
social and even linguistic boundaries.102 Increasingly, Bretons from all social
backgrounds interpreted Charles’s twenty-three-year reign as a golden age.
One farmer claimed that, despite the war that tore the Duchy apart during
Charles’s reign, ‘Simple people and nobles alike had an abundance of food
and clothing, in short everything that is necessary’. 103 He directly contrasted
this with Montfort rule, which ushered in a new age of, ‘Massacre, poverty,
misery and hardship’.104 Furthermore, the records clearly show that Charles’s
legend had support in the Breton-speaking community, as two translators
were needed to take the testimony of one witness: the first to interpret from
Breton to French, the second to render the French into Latin. 105 There was
clear, widespread support for Charles and, by association, the Counts of
Penthièvre.
The Montforts needed to respond to the growing support that their
enemies were beginning to enjoy, especially in the wake of Charles V’s
attempt to invade the duchy in 1378. Without the loyalty of their people,
100
Prigent, Pouvoir ducal, religion et production artistique, pp. 126.
J.-C. Cassard, ‘Les Pélerins à Charles de Blois: Un enjeu politique dans la Bretagne de
l’immédiat après guerre de succession’, in P. A. Sigal (ed.), L’image du pélerin au Moyen-Age
et sous l’ancien regime (Montpellier, 1998), p. 574.
102
Minois, Histoire réligieuse, pp. 53-54.
103
Quoted in J.-P. Leguay and H. Martin, Fastes et malheures de la Bretagne ducale
(Rennes, 1982), p. 139
104
Ibid., p. 139.
105
J.-C. Cassard, ‘Politique et fidelité dans le Trégor occidental’, in J.-C. Cassard (ed.), SaintJean-du-Doigt, des origins à Tanguy Prigent (Brest, 2001), p. 128.
101
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maintaining the autonomy of the duchy would be impossible. Yet the dukes’
attempts to counteract the Penthièvre’s support were met with varied
reactions. In 1369, Jean IV ordered that an icon of Charles in Tréguier be
whitewashed, only for the Franciscans to report that the martyr’s blood was
seeping through from underneath; the miracle was reported as far away as
Vannes, a Montfortist stronghold on the opposite coast.106 Coins were minted
quoting Psalm 70: 1, which suggested, to the Latinate community at least, the
role of the divine in the Montfortist victory [Fig. 4.2].107 Jean V even
commissioned an enormous statue of his father at Tréguier, in the heart of the
Penthièvre lands on the northern coast, which was home to the hugely
popular shrines to Saint Yves and Saint Tugdual.108 The statue, which has
since been destroyed, was a tribute to the victory at Auray, further reinforcing
the role of providence on the battlefield. Yet, despite these measures and an
eventual papal condemnation of the cult, support for Charles continued and
the threat only subsided in 1448, when Charles’s heirs agreed to fully
renounce their claim to the throne.109
No sooner had the threat from the Counts of Penthièvre abated than
another foe had raised its head. By the 1460’s, François II still lacked a male
heir. Since the 1365 Treaty of Guérande, which concluded the War of
Succession, stipulated male primogeniture as the hereditary principle for the
duchy, the most powerful members of the Breton nobility began to establish
their own credentials to rule. In a stark parallel with the Montfort pretentions to
royal power in their duchy, several notable families, including the counts of
Laval, began to claim the title of ‘Prince’.110 The most significant threat,
however, came from the viscounts of Rohan. Viscount Jean II made overt
gestures suggesting he was preparing to make claims to the throne, most
notably his marriage in 1562 to Marie de Bretagne, the daughter of François I.
As things stood, and François II did fail to produce a male heir, Jean would
Jones, ‘Politics, sanctity and the Breton state’, p. 222.
Y. Coativy, La Monnaie des ducs de Bretagne de l’an mil à 1499 (Rennes, 2006), p.311.
108
Prigent, Pouvoir ducal, religion et production artistique, pp. 136-137.
109
J. Kerhervé, L’État Breton aux 14e et 15e siècles: Les ducs, l’argent et les homes (Paris,
1987), p. 60.
110
D. Le Page, ‘Noblesse et pouvoir royal en Bretagne’, in J. Kerhervé (ed.), Noblesses de
Bretagne: Du Moyen Age à nos jours (Rennes, 1999), p. 129.
106
107
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theoretically take over the government of the duchy through his marriage to
the eldest daughter of François I. To bolster their claims, especially once
François II began to assert the rights of his daughter to inherit his title, the
Rohans began to manipulate genealogies to assert a pseudo-historicity and
justification to their legitimacy.
However, where the counts of Penthièvre had drawn on French as well
as Breton traditions, the Rohan ideology was primarily a transformative
reception of the Montfortist historiography. They asserted a genealogical
connection to King Conan, who had, according to the Chronicon Briocense
and the histories that followed it, led the invasion of Brittany and founded the
ancient kingdom. More significantly though, they linked themselves to the
King’s brother, Saint Mériadec. Mériadec was a hugely popular saint in the
viscounts’ lands on the southern coast of the peninsular, where tradition
widely acknowledged him as an ascetic and the founder of the bishopric of
Vannes. A fifteenth-century life of the saint, which appears to have been
written by a follower of the counts of Rohan, begins with an account of the
successors to Conan: ‘The blessed Mériadec was of the Breton race, of the
direct line of the King Conan the Magnificent … and the Viscount of Rohan
was of his family … and the posterity of this line now rests of his successors
alone’.111 Just as the Montforts attempted to confer the qualities of Salomon
and Judicaël on themselves, the counts of Rohan attempted to manipulate the
cult of Mériadec in the same way; they were asserting their suitability for the
Breton throne.
Indeed, the Rohans seemed to flaunt this link whenever they possibly
could, even during a legal dispute with Count Guy XIV of Laval. 112
Nevertheless, this adaption of the Montfort ideology was not restricted to
written sources. The Rohans, like the dukes themselves, were well aware that
successful propagation of the cult of their dynastic saint was dependent upon
effective use of the visual media. At the Chapel of Saint-Mériadec in Stival, a
Quoted in A.-Y. Bourgès, ‘Le contexte idéologique du développement du culte de saint
Mériadec en Bretagne au Bas Moyen Age’, Kreiz: Études sur la Bretagne et les pays
celtiques, 14 (2001), p. 126.
112
Ibid., p. 125.
111
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tiny village by Pontivy, near the geographical centre of the Duchy, a latemedieval fresco testifies to the political significance of this cult for the counts
of Rohan.113 This painting shows a series of scenes featuring Conan,
Mériadec and Viscount Jean II; it stresses the significance of the attachment
between the viscounts and Mériadec as well the posterity of the Rohan
dynasty as the sole surviving branch of the mythical-king Conan.114 This did
not only sanctify and legitimise Rohan claims; it also undercut and
contradicted the earlier Montfort histories, which had connected the Montforts
to the mythical invasion led by King Conan.
These assertions did not go unanswered. Once Anne of Brittany
assumed rule of the Duchy in 1488 it became necessary for the Montforts to
respond, especially as Rohan was seeking support for his rival claim to the
duchy at the French court. In the Grandes Croniques de Bretaigne, which
Anne herself had commissioned, Alain Bouchart clearly contradicted the
pretentions of the viscounts. According to his chronicle, a King named Alan
the Long, a direct descendent of King Conan, reigned the early-medieval
Kingdom of Brittany for twenty years but he ‘did not leave any children or
relatives’.115 In case there was any doubt, Bouchart explicitly informs his
reader that ‘in him [King Alan] did the male line of Conan Mériadec die out’. 116
Moreover, in a telling contrast with his incorrect acknowledgement of the
sanctity of Charles de Blois, Bouchart does not once mention Saint Mériadec
in any of the four books of the Grandes Croniques.117
The cultivation of a Breton identity in Montfort historiography and
iconography was not a mere imposition of lofty ideals on an unresponsive
public, nor a simple dialogue between the dukes of Brittany and the kings of
France. Brittany was an instable region and the power of the Montfortists was
113
There is no good quality image of this fresco in any of the books I have been able to
consult. A small, black and white image, however, can be found in Le Page and Nassiet,
Union de Bretagne à la France, p. 33.
114
M. Nassiet, ‘Fidelités et perspectives dynastiques dans la noblesse bretonne lors de la
crise de succession (1470-1491)’, in J. Kerhervé (ed.), Noblesses de Bretagne: Du Moyen
Age à nos jours (Rennes, 1999), p. 21.
115
Bouchart, Grandes croniques I, p. 298.
116
Ibid., p. 298.
117
Bouchart, Grandes croniques II, pp. 91-92.
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never solidly consolidated, especially during the beginning and the end of
their rule in the duchy. The attempts to cultivate a strong, emotional allegiance
to the Montfort dynasty, in what has been termed a ‘national sentiment’,
certainly enjoyed a degree of success, but they were by no means universally
accepted. Whilst some Breton nobles supported the dukes, many others
ultimately gave allegiance to the French and yet another group manipulated
the ideology of these two dynasties to their own purposes. Although highly
probably, it is ultimately beyond the capacity of the sources to prove that
many more swapped sides between each one of these positions.
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5. Conclusion: A Modest Proposal
There can be no doubt that the dukes of late-medieval Brittany and their
followers were consciously engaged in an ambitious nation-making project,
which aimed to usurp the language of traditional Christianity to counteract a
French tradition that often marginalised the Duchy as a mere region of a much
larger Kingdom. Furthermore, it is evident that the Montforts and their
supporters intended these ideas to have a widespread social appeal. After all,
they deliberately aligned themselves with characters like Salomon and
Judicaël who were culturally significant in a religious culture that was shared
by the elites and the general populace. When appropriating religious space
they used highly significant places that were visited by huge numbers of
people from all backgrounds. It was no coincidence that a statue of Jean IV’s
victory over Chales de Blois was erected in Tréguier, the hometown of Saint
Yves, a popular pilgrimage destination and the site of a miracle accounted to
the Montforts’ old enemy, Charles de Blois himself. It is ironic that the only
solid evidence that remains of the reception of the use of religious
iconography to create an allegiance amongst the lower classes comes from
the testimony of a farmer at the inquest into the canonisation of Charles, a
testimony that does not reflect well on the dukes themselves.
This problem, in itself, resulted from a fundamental instability in the
propagation of Montfortist iconography: nobody appreciated that, once texts
had been circulated and images constructed, interpretation was a completely
uncontrollable process. This phenomena is apparent within the Montfortist
historiography itself; indeed, it seems more appropriate to talk of Montfortist
ideologies, in the plural, rather than the singular, unified, Breton ‘national
sentiment’ that has become a cliché in the work of modern historical
scholars.118 Consider, for example, the contrasting philosophies of churchstate relations in the Chronicon Briocense and Pierre Le Baud’s Croniques et
ystoires des Bretons. Whereas the anonymous author saw a clear distinction
between, ‘Spiritual power [which] is the greatest and temporal power [which]
M. Jones, ‘Breton Identity’, pp. 58-77; Kerhervé, ‘Les chroniqueurs Bretons de la fin du
Moyen Age’, pp. 165-206; Kerhervé, ‘Entre conscience nationale et identité régionale’, pp.
219-243.
118
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is the smallest’, one could be forgiven for believing that a clerical estate had
become redundant in the Brittany of Le Baud, who prefigures the Montforts
with the great Christian monarchs; Constantine, Helen, Salomon and
Judicaël.119 Ultimately, the dukes’ most powerful subjects, in their own
reception of Montfortist iconography and historiography, were able to recreate
certain myths in their own image, just as the Montfortists themselves had
used French works to buttress their own pretentions. Rather than a one-way
dictation, the emergence of a fractured national sentiment became a dialogic
process as various groups competed for allegiance in a politically unstable
Duchy that felt the divisions of the War of Succession long after formal
hostilities had ceased.
The concern with maintaining a separate Breton identity continued
when Anne of Brittany marred into the French royal family in 1492: the future
of an autonomous Brittany was now at its most vulnerable. One image in
particular, taken from the Grandes Heures d’Anne de Bretagne, an ornate
work that the new Queen of France commissioned in 1508, seems to provide
a culmination of all previous Breton iconography [Fig. 5.1]. In this diptych the
Duchess kneels before a pièta scene accompanied by three saints of a
particular importance to the Bretons; Saint Anne, Saint Ursula and Saint
Helen. Besides her role as the Duchess’s name-saint and the growing
importance of the holy family in lay religious life, Saint Anne was increasingly
associated with the duchy in the early sixteenth century, eventually being
recognised as Brittany’s patron saint. Saint Ursula and Saint Helen also have
an explicitly ‘national’ significance and both are familiar from the legends
rewritten by the chroniclers. Ursula, with the tale of the 1,000 virgins, evokes
the legendary migration and Helen, the mother of Constantine, underlines
both the supposed ties of the duchy with the golden age of antiquity and the
posterity of Christianity amongst the Bretons. Both figures wear royal crowns
and ermine garments and Ursula even carries as ermine flag; this is a stark
reminder of the then recent past, reinforcing that the union of kingdom and
duchy was by no means inevitable.
119
Le Duc and Steckx (eds.), Chronicon Briocense, p, 79.
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However, towards the end of the duchy’s independence, artistic
depictions of dukes were often more ambiguous. The tomb of François II and
Marguerite de Foix in Nantes is typical of this tendency [Fig. 5.2]. At first
sight, this is a classic political work of Montfort iconography; the Duke and the
Duchess are depicted wearing royal crowns and several crowned ducal coats
of arms, supported by ermines, adorn the marble sculpture. Furthermore, the
French sculptors, Michel Colombe and Jean Perréal, clearly wished to present
François as an ideal monarch and his reign as a golden age. On each corner
of the tomb sit the allegorical figures for each of the virtues that medieval
political thinkers saw as the qualities of an ideal monarch; justice, fortitude,
wisdom and temperance. Yet the saints featured on the tomb are of a
distinctly French nature. Charlemagne is depicted, evoking the ‘imperial’
claims of the French kings over the autonomous principalities, including
Brittany and so is Saint Louis, a figure who was used to justify, in religious
terms, the encroachment of French royal rule on the principalities. In a sense
then, this sculpture is emblematic of the complex power struggle between
dukes and kings that had been going on in Brittany since, if not before, the
War of Succession.120
Evidently then, the ‘national consciousness’ promoted by the
Montfortist dynasty was far from the pinnacle in the construction of a
burckhardtian-style ‘Renaissance state’ that the most prominent Anglophone
historian of late-medieval Brittany has suggested it to be.121 On the contrary,
the nature of the sources suggests that the dukes and their supporters used
history and art in certain specific contexts; this was certainly not a premeditated and carefully considered propaganda offensive that twenty-first
century civilisation is so sensitive to. The xenophobia of the Chronicon
Briocense, for example, should primarily be read in light of the French
attempts to annex the duchy in the late-fourteenth century. Ultimately then,
the obsession with using religious language to cultivate allegiances seems to
J.-C. Cassard, ‘La tradition royale en Bretagne armorique’, Revue Historique, 281 (1989),
pp. 261-275.
121
M. Jones, ‘Preface’, in M. Jones (ed.), The Creation of Brittany (London, 1998), p. xi; J.
Burckhardt, The Civilisation of the Renaissance in Italy (London, 1990), pp. 19-21.
120
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betray a genuine instability and insecurity that the dukes felt; the writers of the
historical texts were aware that the Montforts were dukes not kings, that they
were not anointed rulers, and seem fixated with masking or explaining-away
these realities. Furthermore, the very real political insecurity of late-medieval
Brittany is further demonstrated by the way that the Montforts’ enemies
appropriated the material to suit their own political purposes at specific
moments. The propagation of identity should, in the late Middle Ages, be seen
in terms of debate, response and instability rather than being interpreted as
powerful monolithic structures.
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Appendix I: Images
Fig. 1.1. The interior of the Wilton Diptych (c.1395), an altarpiece that is
currently on display at the National Gallery.
(J. Durand, L’Art au Moyen Age, p. 122)
Fig. 1.2. Jean IV and his family venerating the Virgin from the Missel des
Carmes de Nantes (c.1390s). Notice the similarities to the Wilton Diptych.
It is intriguing, although perhaps coincidental, that Jean IV and his son both
spent time at the court of Richard II around the time the Diptych was painted.
(La Bretagne au Temps des Ducs: Catalogue de l’exposition, p. 59)
Fig. 1.3. From a portrait of the Duchess Isabelle Stuart and her daughters in a
Book of Hours (1464). The duchess’s coat of arms is crowned and supported
by two angels.
(La Bretagne au Temps des Ducs: Catalogue de l’exposition, p. 61)
Fig. 1.4. From a portrait of Pierre II in the Heures à l’usage de Nantes (c.
1456). An angel supports the crowned ducal coat of arms.
(La Bretagne au Temps des Ducs: Catalogue de l’exposition, p. 127)
Fig. 2.1. A golden coin issued by François II, minted in Nantes c. 1450. Notice
the Duke’s ermine shield and the inscription: FRANCISCVS DEI GRATIA
BRITONVM DUX.
(La Bretagne au Temps des Ducs: Catalogue de l’exposition, p. 57)
Fig. 2.2. The coronation of François I as depicted in a manuscript of Pierre le
Baud’s Compilation des croniques et ystoires des Bretons. Currently held in
the Bibliothèque Nationale de France.
(La Bretagne au Temps des Ducs: Catalogue de l’exposition, p. 73)
Fig. 2.3. The coronation of King Arthur as depicted in the same manuscript.
(Institut Culturel de Bretagne, Arts de Bretagne: XIV-XX siècle, p. 42)
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Fig. 2.4. A statue of Jean V from c. 1400. The unusual headpiece, neither
royal crown nor cercle ducal, is believed to be a special crown worn during a
minority. When he acceded to the throne in 1399, Jean was only ten years
old.
(La Bretagne au Temps des Ducs: Catalogue de l’exposition, p. 7)
Fig. 3.1. The Breton saints from Bouchart’s Grandes Croniques de Bretaigne
(1515). On the top row are the Saint-Monarchs Judicaël, Salomon and Helen,
(C. Prigent, Pouvoir ducal, religion et pouvoir artistique en Basse Bretagne:
1350-1575, p. 150.)
Fig. 3.2. The Duke and his Parlement from Bouchart’s Grandes Croniques de
Bretaigne (1515). Notice the similarities between the Duke as presented here
and the saints Salomon and Judicaël above, stressing continuity and shared
characteristics.
(La Bretagne au Temps des Ducs: Catalogue de l’exposition, p. 75.)
Fig. 3.3. The church door at La Martyre, renovated in the mid-fifteenth
century.
(C. Prigent, Pouvoir ducal, religion et pouvoir artistique en Basse Bretagne:
1350-1575, p. 177.)
Fig. 4.1. An engraving on the tomb of Roland de Coëtgourheden in
Guingamp, which depicts Charles de Blois presenting Roland to the Virgin
and Child, clearly usurping the use of the Virgin in Montfortist iconography. It
should be noted that the sword between Charles’s legs is the addition of a
nineteenth-century restoration.
(J.-Y. Copy, Art, Société et Politique au temp des Ducs de Bretagne: Les
gisants haut-bretons, p. 114.)
Fig. 4.2. A coin minted at Nantes during the reign of Jean IV in the latefourteenth century. On the face, notice the depiction of the duke, both
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mounted and armed. On the reverse reads the excerpt from Psalm 70: DEUS
INADIVTORIUM MEUM INTENDE.
(La Bretagne au Temps des Ducs: Catalogue de l’exposition, p. 53.)
Fig. 5.1. The diptych from the Grandes heures d’Anne de Bretage by Jean
Bourdichon, commissioned in 1508. The figures behind Duchess Anne, from
left to right, are Saint Anne, Saint Ursula and Saint Helen. Notice the royal
crowns worn by Ursula and Helen, as well as the ermine flag that Ursula
carries.
(La Bretagne au Temps des Ducs: Catalogue de l’exposition, p. 169.)
Fig. 5.2. A drawing of the tomb of François II and Marguerite de Foix. The
tomb is still in the Cathédrale Saint-Pierre-et-Saint-Paul de Nantes. Notice the
explicitly Breton features of the tomb, such as the ermines, the shields and
the Montfort lion. This contrasts with the French features, including figures of
Saint Louis and Charlemage that adorn another side of the tomb.
(J.-Y. Copy, Art, Société et Politique au temp des Ducs de Bretagne: Les
gisants haut-bretons, p. 208.)
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Appendix II: Source Material in French
1. Introduction, p. 2.
From: Jean Meschinot, Ballade pour l’arivée de la Duchesse de Foix en
Bretaigne.
Riche paiy, contrée tresheuresuse,
Amée de Dieu, ne voit on clerement,
Duché sans per, Bretaigne planctueuse.
2. The French Connection, pp. 7-8.
From: Jean Froissart, Chroniques.
‘Li contes de Montfort qui estoit d’un aultre pere qui onques n’avoit estet dus
de Bretagne’
2. The French Connection, p. 8.
From: Grandes chroniques de France.
‘Le mer passèrent et vindrent habiter ès derraines parties de France, par
devers Occident.’
‘Saint Genevièvre … qui en ce temps aloit en Bretaigne ,pour déstruire
l’érésie pélagienne dont Sainte Eglyse estoit corrompue en ces parties’
2. The French Connection, p. 9.
From: G. Le Duc and C Sterckx (trans.), Chronicon Briocense.
‘Voici les characteristiques de certains peoples… la cuauté ou la superbe des
Français, la traîtrise des Saxons.’
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‘Les historiens qui one rédigé ou compile les chroniques de France n’ont
pratiquement pas fait mention des rois Bretons qui vécurent en Grande ou en
Petite Bretagne’
2. The French Connection, pp. 9-10.
From: A. Bouchat, Grands Croniques de Bretaigne.
‘J’ay veu et leu plusieurs cronicques, histories et aultres livres traictans des
faitz et gestes de moult grant nombre d’empreurs, roys et aultres princes …
Mais encores n’ay je veu aucun tracté qui ait esté entierement compose du
noble pays de Bretaigne qui jadis fut appellé royaulme d’Armoricque.’
2. The French Connection, p. 10.
From P. Le Baud, Genealogie des roys, ducs et princes de Bretaigne.
‘A present court une oppinion et erreur vulgalle … mais mesmement entre
plusieurs aultres qui doyvent cognoistre et savoir.’
From: A. Bouchart, Grands Croniques de Bretaigne.
‘Par ce moyen furent tous delors chrestiens en la grande Bretaigne, et la loy
paganique y fut abolye et detruicte; et soubz la foy et la creance d’ung seul
Dieu y furent ediffiez plusieurs temples.’
2. The French Connection, p. 11.
From: G. Le Duc and C Sterckx (trans.), Chronicon Briocense.
‘Celui qui engage son âme pour ses frères n’hesite pas à suivre le Christ. Si
l’un de vous périt dans la bataille, sa mort sera sa pénitence et son
absolution.’
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2. The French Connection, p. 12.
Quoted in: ‘Fragment d’un éloge de la Bretagne au XVe siècle.’
‘Constantin, roi des Bretons, ayant vaincu Maxence, dota l’Église romaine
d’un riche patrimoine, montrant ainsi la générosité et la libéralité qui
convenaient à un Empereur chrétien et Breton.
‘Car jamais aucun peuple n’a produit un enfant aussi illustre pas sa vie et ses
miracles’ / ‘Vel hoc fortasse empinentior quod nulla unquam alia Regio
splendidorem et vita miraculis partum ediderit’
2. The French Connection, p. 13.
Quoted in: ‘Le catholicon de Jean Lagadeuc: pour son cinquième centenaire.’
‘Qui ne ferait pas l’éloge de Bretagne? Qui pourrait ne pas célébrer ses
mérites? Ne pas l’admirer au plus haut point?’
2. The French Connection, pp. 13-14.
From: ‘Le ceremonial du couronnement des ducs de Bretagne au XVe siècle.’
‘L’on vous a baillé cest cercle ou nom de Dieu … qui désigne que vous
recepvés votre puissance de Dieu le tout-puissant, qui comme cercle ront n’a
fin ne commencement.’
3. The Role of Indigenous Traditions, p. 19.
From: M. Jones (ed.), Recueil des actes de Jean IV, duc de Bretagne.
‘Vous plaise à savoir le pais de Bretaigne … estoit appele roiaulme gouverne
par Roys comme furent le Roi Gicquel, le Roy Salomon, le Roy Conan et
aultres leurs subcessaurs qui le ont gouverne en gouvernement roial.’
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3. The Role of Indigenous Traditions, p. 22.
From: P. Le Baud, Croniques et ystoires des Bretons.
‘Sois certain, Judicael, que tu es benheuré … car pour ce que tu m’as honoré
en terre , tu seras exaulcé & honnoré ou ciel & en la terre.’
From: A. Bouchart, Grands Croniques de Bretaigne.
‘Il estoit vertueux et loyal prince, moult catholicque et bon chrestien.’
‘Deux bastards de France … usurperent le royaulme et la couronne de
France’
‘La mort et passion du noble roy sainct Salomon’
3. The Role of Indigenous Traditions, p. 23.
Quoted in: J-Y. Copy, Art, société et politique au temps des Ducs de
Bretagne: Les gisants haut-bretons.
‘Grallon roy chrestien des Bretons Armoriques
… gist dudit Grallon le corps
Dieu par sa sainte grace en soit miséricorde’
4. Reception and Response, p. 27.
From: A. Bouchart, Grands Croniques de Bretaigne.
‘L’ung d’eulx … luy creva les deux yeulx et les arrachea et jecta hors de sa
teste contre terre.’
4. Reception and Response, p. 28.
From: P. Le Baud, Chronique de Vitré.
‘Ceux de Bretaigne … des Ducs & Princes Royaulx qui ont succede en leur
lieu; desquels Roys, Ducs & Princes vous estes extraicte & descenuë’
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‘Car la Monarchie fut diuisee entre les Princes particuliers du pais, qui en
occuperent chacun ce qu’il en peut auoir, & ne daignoient obeir l’vn à l’autre.’
4. Reception and Response, p. 30.
Quoted in: J.P. Leguay and H. Martin, Fastes et malheures de la Bretagne
ducale.
‘De son vivant, nous, les habitants de cette region , tant les demples gens que
les nobles, nous avons eu en abundance les victuailles, les vêtements et tout
ce qui est nécessaire à la vie, bien que les guerres n’aient cessé de faire
rage. En revanche, après sa mort, massacre et pauvreté, misère et pénure se
sont abbatus sur nous, et les récoltes ainsi que le bétail ont subi de gros
dégâts.’
4. Reception and Response, p. 32.
Quoted in: A.-Y. Bourgès, ‘Le contexte idéologique du développement du
culte de saint Mériadec en Bretagne au Bas Moyen Age’.
‘Le bienheureux Meriadec était de la race des Bretons, issu en droite ligne de
la parenté de Conan le magnifique … le vicompte de Rohan était regardé
comme son parent; duquel vicompte, et de ses successeurs jusqu’à
aujourd’hui, la postérité a ainsi établi qu’ils étaient issus en droite ligne du
sang dudit Conan, à l’exclusion des autres Bretons.’
4. Reception and Response, p. 33.
From: A. Bouchart, Grands Croniques de Bretaigne.
‘Le roy Alain regna vingt huyt ans et ne laissa aucuns enfans ne parens, au
moien de quoy faillit en luy la lignee masculine de Conam Meriadec.’
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5. Conclusion: A Modest Proposal, p. 36.
From: G. Le Duc and C Sterckx (trans.), Chronicon Briocense.
‘Le pouvoir spiritual est le plus grand et la pouvoir politique le plus petit.’
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