The Viscounty or County of Léon () was a

feudal state Feudalism, also known as the feudal system, was a combination of legal, economic, military, cultural, and political customs that flourished in medieval Europe from the 9th to 15th centuries. Broadly defined, it was a way of structuring societ ...

in extreme western

Brittany Brittany ( ) is a peninsula, historical country and cultural area in the north-west of modern France, covering the western part of what was known as Armorica in Roman Gaul. It became an Kingdom of Brittany, independent kingdom and then a Duch ...

in the

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. Though nominally a vassal of the sovereign

duke of Brittany This is a list of rulers of Brittany. In different epochs the rulers of Brittany were kings, princes, and dukes. The Breton ruler was sometimes elected, sometimes attained the position by conquest or intrigue, or by hereditary right. Hereditary ...

, Léon was functionally independent of any external controls until the viscounts came under attack by King

Henry II of England Henry II () was King of England The monarchy of the United Kingdom, commonly referred to as the British monarchy, is the form of government used by the United Kingdom by which a hereditary monarch reigns as the head of state, with the ...

. It thus became the focus of revolts and wars when Brittany was drawn into the

Angevin empire The Angevin Empire (; ) was the collection of territories held by the House of Plantagenet during the 12th and 13th centuries, when they ruled over an area covering roughly all of present-day England, half of France, and parts of Ireland and Wal ...

. The history of Léon's early counts is obscure. The original viscounts of Léon were public officials appointed by the counts of Cornouaille, but by the mid-eleventh century they had usurped public authority in their province. Their ability to remain independent of both count and duke was likely due to their remoteness in the extremity of the

Armorica In ancient times, Armorica or Aremorica (Gaulish: ; ; ) was a region of Gaul between the Seine and the Loire that includes the Brittany Peninsula, and much of historical Normandy. Name The name ''Armorica'' is a Latinized form of the Gauli ...

n peninsula. Unlike their Breton neighbours they did not participate in the

Norman conquest of England The Norman Conquest (or the Conquest) was the 11th-century invasion and occupation of England by an army made up of thousands of Normans, Norman, French people, French, Flemish people, Flemish, and Bretons, Breton troops, all led by the Du ...

in 1066.Everard, 16. Count Harvey II, however, did participate on the side of Stephen of Blois in the nineteen years of civil war in England called

The Anarchy The Anarchy was a civil war in England and Duchy of Normandy, Normandy between 1138 and 1153, which resulted in a widespread breakdown in law and order. The conflict was a war of succession precipitated by the accidental death of William Adel ...

. The viscounts also fought with the duke of Brittany in attempts to maintain their independence. Henry II had ordered Duke Conan IV of Brittany to march against Léon. Conan IV's son-in-law and eventual successor, Henry II's son, Geoffrey II, went to war against Viscount Guihomar IV of Léon. In the course of these wars most of the castles of the viscounts of Léon were razed and Guihomar's lands—his source of revenue—were significantly reduced. These conflict over authority in Léon continued down to the reign of John II. In 1235 the subvassals of Léon and Penthièvre brought a series of complaints, the ''Communes petitiones Britonum'', against the duke, Peter of Dreux, to King

Louis IX of France Louis IX (25 April 1214 – 25 August 1270), also known as Saint Louis, was King of France from 1226 until his death in 1270. He is widely recognized as the most distinguished of the Direct Capetians. Following the death of his father, Louis VI ...

.Everard, 18. They claimed that the viscounts of Léon had never theretofore been subject to the custody of or relief from the duke nor had they been required to seek permission for the construction of fortresses. They had always had the right of wreck, that is, a monopoly on shipwrecks and their cargoes on the coasts. They had the right to draw up testaments and to dispense with alms and make arrangements for debt-payment freely. The duke, they said, did not have a right to exact oaths of homage from the viscount's men and the viscount had the right of ''placitum spade'' ("pleas of the sword"). The right of wreck alone yielded 100,000 '' solidi'' per annum in revenues from a single rock on the treacherous coast, which an earlier viscount, Guihomar IV, had called his "most precious stone." 26-04-2005-015

The territory of Léon was preserved in the Bishopric of Léon. It is now part of the department of

Finistère Finistère (, ; ) is a Departments of France, department of France in the extreme west of Brittany. Its prefecture is Quimper and its largest city is Brest, France, Brest. In 2019, it had a population of 915,090.Notre Dame du Kreisker, is the town of Saint-Pol-de-Léon.

List of viscounts

* Even, a semi-legendary nobleman who lived c. 900. * Maybe Alan I of Léon, father of Guihomar I. * Guihomar I (fl. c. 1021-1055). ** ''Morvan'' (fl. c. 1050). According to French historian Joëlle Quaghebeur, Morvan was not a viscount of Léon but a nobleman from Cornouaille. * Alan II of Léon, son of Guihomar ** ''Ehuarn'' (fl. c. 1066-1084), Morvan's son. Likewise, Joëlle Quaghebeur thinks Ehuarn was not a viscount of Léon but a nobleman from Cornouaille. * Guihomar II (died 1103), who is said to have been Guihomar I's grandson. * Harvey I (died after 1128). * Guihomar III (died c. 1157). * Harvey II (died c. 1168). * Guihomar IV (died 1179). * Guihomar V (died after 1216) controlled only a small portion of Leon; fought on the side of Duchess Constance and Duke Arthur I. * Conan I, (died before 1231) fought and was captured with Duke Arthur I; later attacked by Duke Peter I. Lost the Battle of Chateaubriant in 1222, a rebellion of Breton nobles, which established the authority of Duchess Alix and Duke Peter I. * Guihomar VI (died c. 1239), rebelled against Duke

John I John I may refer to: People Religious figures * John I (bishop of Jerusalem) * John Chrysostom (349 – c. 407), Patriarch of Constantinople * John I of Antioch (died 441) * Pope John I of Alexandria, Coptic Pope from 496 to 505 * Pope John I, P ...

in 1237 * Harvey III (c. 1239 - c. 1265), ceded the town, port and chateau of Brest to the duke of Brittany in 1240 * Harvey IV (c. 1271 - c. 1298), sold much of the remaining riches of the viscounty * Amé, daughter of Harvey IV, sold all her rights and definitively renounced them in 1298; the line of the viscounts of Leon becomes extinct * ''Large portions of Viscounty held in the domain of the duke of Brittany (1179 - 1269)'' * Peter of Brittany (1269-1312), son of Duke John II granted the viscountship by his father- to settle his debts, Peter resold the viscountship to his brother Duke Arthur II of Brittany in 1293. The lordship (or "honour") of Leon passed to the House of Rohan in 1363.

References

Notes

Sources

*Everard, Judith A. ''Brittany and the Angevins: Province and Empire, 1158–1203''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. . {{DEFAULTSORT:Viscounty of Leon Medieval Brittany House of Léon