Waroch ( br, Gwereg) was an early Breton ruler of the Vannetais ('). Waroch, or his grandfather Waroch I, gave his name to the traditional Breton province of Bro-Waroch ("land of Waroch"). However, it is possible that there were several successive local leaders with this name. He is called "Waroch II" to distinguish him from a hypothetical earlier ruler, Waroch I. In 578, the Frankish king Chilperic I sent an army to fight Waroch along the

Vilaine The Vilaine (; br, Gwilen) is a river in Brittany, in the west of France. The river's source is in the Mayenne ''département'' (53), and it flows out into the Atlantic Ocean at Pénestin in the Morbihan ''département'' (56). It is 218 km ...

. The Frankish army consisted of units from

Poitou Poitou (, , ; ; Poitevin: ''Poetou'') was a province of west-central France whose capital city was Poitiers. Both Poitou and Poitiers are named after the Pictones Gallic tribe. Geography The main historical cities are Poitiers (historical c ...

Touraine Touraine (; ) is one of the traditional provinces of France. Its capital was Tours. During the political reorganization of French territory in 1790, Touraine was divided between the departments of Indre-et-Loire, :Loir-et-Cher, Indre and Vien ...

, Anjou,

Maine Maine () is a state in the New England and Northeastern regions of the United States. It borders New Hampshire to the west, the Gulf of Maine to the southeast, and the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick and Quebec to the northeast and ...

and Bayeux. The ''Baiocassenses'' "men from Bayeux" were

Saxons The Saxons ( la, Saxones, german: Sachsen, ang, Seaxan, osx, Sahson, nds, Sassen, nl, Saksen) were a group of Germanic * * * * peoples whose name was given in the early Middle Ages to a large country (Old Saxony, la, Saxonia) near the Nor ...

and they in particular were routed by the Bretons. The armies fought for three days before Waroch submitted, did homage for Vannes, sent his son as a hostage, and agreed to pay an annual tribute. He subsequently broke his oath, but Chilperic's dominion over the Bretons was relatively secure as evidenced by Venantius Fortunatus' celebration of it in a poem. In 587,

Guntram Saint Gontrand (c. 532 in Soissons – 28 March 592 in Chalon-sur-Saône), also called Gontran, Gontram, Guntram, Gunthram, Gunthchramn, and Guntramnus, was the king of the Kingdom of Orléans from AD 561 to AD 592. He was the third eldest and ...

compelled obedience from Waroch. He forced the renewal of the oath of 578 in writing and demanded 1,000 '' solidi'' in compensation for raiding the

Nantais Nantes (, , ; Gallo: or ; ) is a city in Loire-Atlantique on the Loire, from the Atlantic coast. The city is the sixth largest in France, with a population of 314,138 in Nantes proper and a metropolitan area of nearly 1 million inhabitan ...

. In 588 the compensation was not yet paid as Waroch promised it to both Guntram and

Chlothar II Chlothar II, sometime called "the Young" (French: le Jeune), (May/June 584 – 18 October 629), was king of Neustria and king of the Franks, and the son of Chilperic I and his third wife, Fredegund. He started his reign as an infant under the ...

, who probably had suzerainty over Vannes. In 589 or 590, Guntram sent an expedition against Waroch under Beppolem and Ebrachain, mutual enemies. Ebrachain was also the enemy of

Fredegund Fredegund or Fredegunda (Latin: ''Fredegundis''; French: ''Frédégonde''; died 8 December 597) was the Queen consort of Chilperic I, the Merovingian Frankish king of Soissons. Fredegund served as regent during the minority of her son Chlot ...

, queen consort to Chilperic, who sent the Saxons of Bayeux to aid Waroch. Beppolem fought alone for three days before dying, at which point Waroch tried to flee to the

Channel Islands The Channel Islands ( nrf, Îles d'la Manche; french: îles Anglo-Normandes or ''îles de la Manche'') are an archipelago in the English Channel, off the French coast of Normandy. They include two Crown Dependencies: the Bailiwick of Jersey, ...

, but Ebrachain destroyed his ships and forced him to accept a peace,Gregory, X, 9. the renewal of the oath, and the giving up of a nephew as a hostage. This was all to no effect. The Bretons maintained their independent-mindedness.

Works cited

*Howorth, Henry H.
The Ethnology of Germany. Part 3: The Migration of the Saxons
" ''The Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland'', Vol. 7. (1878), pp 293–320. * Gregory of Tours. ''The History of the Franks, Volume II: Text''. trans. O. M. Dalton. Clarendon Press: 1967.

Notes

{{Breton monarchs 6th-century rulers of Brittany