Duchy of Brittany

The Duchy of Brittany was the Celtic corner of France from 939 to 1547, the peninsula that stayed itself for six centuries. Britons fleeing the Saxons had settled Armorica in the 400s; Nominoe broke Charles the Bald's yoke about 841, and his kin ruled kings, then dukes, from Nantes and Rennes. Viking fire, Norman greed and Angevin marriage plots all failed to digest it: Alan Barbetorte drove the Norse into the sea, and the dukes played England against France for generations, marrying Richmond to Brittany and Brittany to France by turns. Anne, twice duchess, married Charles VIII then Louis XII, and her marriage contracts nailed Brittany's liberties, its estates, its courts, its right to be taxed only by itself, into French law. Her daughter Claude carried the duchy to Francis I, who in 1532 joined it to the crown while swearing to keep its privileges; the Breton estates met until the Revolution. The duchy's ermine flag, its pardon processions and its Breton tongue outlived its independence, and Nantes' castle still keeps the dukes' tombs.