history of Brittany

The history of Brittany may refer to the entire history of the Armorican peninsula or only to the creation and development of a specifically Brythonic culture and state in the Early Middle Ages and the subsequent history of that state.

Pre-Brythonic Armorica includes the ancient megalith cultures in the area and the Celtic tribal territories that existed before Roman rule. After the collapse of the Roman Empire, large scale migration from the British Isles led to the foundation of British colonies linked initially to homelands in Cornwall, Devon, and Wales. The various independent petty Breton states later developed into a Kingdom and then a Duchy of Brittany, before it was unified with France to become a province. After the French Revolution Brittany was abolished as an administrative unit, but continued to retain its distinctive cultural identity. Its administrative existence was reconstituted, in reduced size, as the Region of Brittany in the mid-20th century.

The history of Brittany begins with settlement beginning in prehistoric times. The Neolithic era, which began around 5000 BCE, is characterised in the region by the development of an important megalithic art found in sites such as the cairn of Barnenez, the cairn of Gavrinis, the table of the Merchants of Locmariaquer or the alignments of Carnac. In the course of its protohistory which began around the middle of the third century BCE, a subsoil rich in tin allowed the development of an industry in bronze objects, which led to commercial routes for export to other regions of Europe. It was inhabited by Gallic peoples including the Veneti and the Namnetes in the first centuries BCE before these territories were conquered by Julius Caesar in 57 BCE, and progressively Romanized.

As part of Armorica since the Gallo-Roman period, Brittany developed an important maritime trade network near the ports of Nantes, Vannes, and Alet, as well as salting factories along its coasts. When Rome encountered crises in the third and fifth centuries, the first wave of island Bretons were asked by the imperial power to help secure their territory, beginning with a migratory movement that was carried out until the sixth century, and saw the beginnings of many kingdoms in the peninsula.

In order to prevent Breton incursion, the neighbouring Frankish kingdom created a Breton borderland incorporating the counties of Rennes and Nantes. From the sixth to ninth centuries however, the Merovingian dynasty and the Carolingian dynasty tried to integrate the region into the Frankish kingdom, with limited and ephemeral success.

The union of the country as Brittany occurred in 851 under King Erispoë, son of Nominoë, but was disrupted by disputes over succession and Norsemen incursions. Since 939, Brittany was re-established as a Sovereign Duchy with somewhat definite borders, administered by Dukes of Breton houses from 939 to 1166, before falling into the sphere of influence of the Plantagenets and then the Capets. The War of the Breton Succession lasted from 1341 to 1364 against the backdrop of the Hundred Years' War. An autonomous power emerged in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, maintaining a policy of independence from France. The union of Brittany to France occurred in 1532.

The Breton province then maintained relative autonomy and benefited from its own institutions. After a period of strong economic and demographic growth in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, due to a period of newfound peace, Brittany experienced a troubled period from the end of the seventeenth century to the French Revolution of 1789. Brittany was dissolved in 1789 and divided among the departments of Côtes-du-Nord, Finistère, Loire-Inférieure and Morbihan.

After a long nineteenth century marked by a modernization of agriculture and by huge increases in population, an emigration to the rest of France began. Although a traditionally conservative region, Brittany saw the rise of workers' movements in cities such as Brest, Lorient and Saint-Nazaire.

The First World War was an important turning point for Bretons, who discovered new ways of life, which some would seek to integrate little by little. The question of the proper place for the Breton language and regional traditions became the central element of a political movement which began to emerge in the same era. A long process of modernization took place from the 1920s through the 1970s, in concert with a movement of cultural reaffirmation.

Prehistory of Brittany

Stone Age

Paleolithic

The Paleolithic period of Brittany ranges from 700 000 to 10 000 years BC. Traces of the oldest industries were found in the middle valley of the Vilaine river, identified as pebbles arranged in a quarry in Saint-Malo-de-Phily. The oldest traces of habitat are located in Saint-Colomban, in Carnac, and take the form of settlements built in natural shelters (cliffs created by the erosion along the coasts). In addition to pebbles, bifaces are found there, and the site dates to 300,000 BC. J.-C. Acheulian bifacials from this period are found along the sea coast, as Treguennec, Hôpital-Camfrout or Pléneuf. The oldest traces of fire use (in the region but also of occidental Europe) are found on the site of Menez Dregan with a date making them up to 400 000 years BC. The few human groups are then made of hunter-gatherers.

From the Middle- Mousterian period, remain two outstanding sites in the region, in Mont-Dol where scrapers were found in a site dated to 70,000 BC., as well as at Goaréva on the island of Bréhat.

The Upper Paleolithic is characterized by refined tools like blades and lamellae found on the site of Beg-ar-C'Hastel in Kerlouan, or at Plasenn-al-Lomm on the island of Bréhat. No painted cave is identified in the area, probably because of rising sea levels during the next period. But the nearest cave of this type is known in Saulges. The end of the Palaeolithic period in the region is around 10,000 BC. J.-C.

Mesolithic

The Mesolithic period covers in the region a period from 10,000 BC. to 5000 BC., corresponding to the end of the last Ice Age and the resulting rise in water level. Steppe vegetation is replaced by a vegetation of birch and pine, and hazel, oak and elms; large mammals give way to animals of smaller size as deer or wild boar. For a time, hunting and gathering continue, as well as fishing and foraging. By the time of the Neolithic, however, animal domestication and cereal production replace hunting. The population is mainly coastal and larger on the south coast. The skeletons found from this period attest to an average size of 1.59 meters for men and 1.52 m for women.

Human technology continues to progress with a reduction in size of stone tools to form microliths. Human societies are more structured, with a degree of specialization of activities in a given community (as indicated by studies of the Téviec burial site) and the beginning of an artistic expression. Traces of deaths caused by tools like arrows are also visible on some skeletons, attesting to sometimes violent conflicts between different communities.

Neolithic

The Neolithic period (stretching from 5000 BC to 2000 BC.) saw the arrival of an agriculture based on slash-and-burn: land is reclaimed from the forest after having fired and is then used for breeding before sprinkling grass. This evolution was made possible by the development of methods of extracting stones and their shaping. In a quarry in Plussulien, about 5000 dolerite axes were extracted per year, representing 40% of the axes of the Breton peninsula. The dissemination of these tools stretched to Paris basin, and 10 copies of these axes were found to Belgium and southern England. The region also imported yellow blond flint blades from Touraine.

This period is also notable for the development of megalithic monuments, helped by a significant economic growth. Two of the most ancient sites, the mound of Barnenez and the Petit-Mont, whose buildings date back to 5000 BC., evidenced by their similarities to a unity of culture in the peninsula. This type of construction will eventually evolve and provide more regional variants. In these burial sites were found engravings similar to those observed in Irish sites like Newgrange.

Besides these barrows are also present menhirs, the highest known being in the Leon region where the largest, that of Kerloas, rises to 9.50 m. The largest ever erected is located in South Brittany in Locmariaquer: the Locmariaquer megaliths amounting to 18.5 m. Engravings can also be found there and their functions are multiple: Indicator of burials, astronomical and topographic features, or reflecting a water worship. The last menhirs were raised around 1800-1500 BC. They can be combined in single or multiple rows, or in semicircles or circles.

Protohistory

Iron Age

A variety of tribes are mentioned in Roman sources, like the Veneti, Armoricani, Osismii, Namnetes and Coriosolites. Strabo and Poseidonius describe the Armoricani as belonging to the Belgae.

Armorican gold coins have been widely exported and are even found in the Rhineland.

Salterns are widespread in Northern Armorica, for example at Trégor, Ebihens and Enez Vihan near Pleumeur-Bodou (Côtes-d'Armor) and the island of Yoc'h near Landuvez (Finistère) of late La Tène date.

An estimated 40–55 kg of salt per oven were produced at Ebihens. Each oven was about 2 m long. The site dates to the end of the early La Tène or the middle La Tène period. Numerous briquetage remains have been found. At Tregor, ''boudins de Calage'' (hand-bricks) were the typical form of briquetage, between 2.5 and 15 cm long and with a diameter of 4–7 cm.
At the salterns at Landrellec and Enez Vihan at Pleumeur-Bodou the remains of rectangular ovens have been excavated that are 2.5–3 m long and about 1 m wide, constructed of stones and clay.
On the Gulf of Morbihan about 50 salterns have been found so far, mainly dating to the final La Téne period.

Roman rule

In 56 BC the area was conquered by the Romans under Julius Caesar. The main resistance came from the Veneti. After their defeat their leaders were killed and the tribe sold as slaves. The Romans called the district '' Armorica'' (a Latinisation of a Celtic word meaning "coastal region"), part of the '' Gallia Lugdunensis'' province. The modern '' département'' of Côtes-d'Armor

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