Kingdom of Brittany

The Kingdom of Brittany was a short-lived polity that emerged on the western edge of the Frankish world during the ninth century. Its history begins in 851, when Erispoe, count of Vannes, defeated Charles the Bald at Jengland and was recognised as king in return for an oath of fidelity; the Frankish ruler granted him the counties of Rennes and Nantes, fixing a frontier that lasted for centuries. Erispoe was murdered in 856 by his cousin Salomon, who took the crown and ruled until 874, when he too was killed. A succession struggle between Gurvand and Pascweten, the men responsible for Salomon's death, coincided with heavy Norse raids up the Loire and Vilaine, and the kingdom fragmented into rival lordships. Alan the Great, count of Vannes, gradually reunified the country and was recognised as king in 890; he died in 907, after which Vikings again overran much of Brittany and the royal title lapsed. In 939 Alan Twistedbeard, grandson of Alan the Great, defeated the Norsemen at Trans and recovered the peninsula, but he took the lesser title of duke. From then on Brittany was a duchy, owing only loose allegiance to the French crown, until its union with France in 1532.